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Early  Hebrew  Story 


Hty  lbic>torical  ^Badujiounb 


BY 


JOHN    P.  PETERS,  D.D.       ^ 

RRCTOK    OF   ST.    MICHAEl's   CHUKCII,    NEW    YORK 

AITIIOK    OF  "  NIFPUR,  OR    EXPLORATIONS    AND   ADVENTURES   ON    THE 

EUPHRATES " 


Williams  &   Norgate 

14  Henrietta  Street,  Covent  Garden,  London 

New   York  :   G.    P.    Putnam's  Sons 

1904 


^  ^ 


Copyright,  1904 

BY 

JOHN  P.  PETERS 


Published,  June,  1904 


Ube  Iftnicherbocfeer  ffirese,  Iftew  jgorft 


DEDICATED 

TO 
MY  MOTHER 

At  whose  knee  I  first 

learned  to  know  and  love 

the  Bible 


111 


IfMM^l 


MINUTE 

Passed  hi/  ffir  V<iruUif  of  the  Bangor 

T/i('oio{/icat  Seminary f 

December,  1003. 

The  Faculty  of  Bangor  Theological  Seminary  wish 
to  express  their  pleasure  in  the  course  of  lectures 
delivered  in  Novonber,  Tpoj,  by  the  Rev.  John  P. 
Peters,  D.D.,  of  Neio  York  City,  upon  the  theme, 
''Early  Hebrezu  Story,  Its  Historical  Background." 
The  broad  and  ripe  scholarship,  the  fresh  knoiv ledge 
of  details,  the  constructive  tonper  and  the  reverent 
Christian  spirit  luhich  luere  always  manifest  gave 
these  lectures  exceptional  worth  not  only  for  the  stu- 
dent body,  but  for  the  large  company  of  thoughtful 
people  who  heard  thcjii.  We  earnestly  hope  that  these 
lectures  zuill  be  published,  for,  while  opinions  may 
differ  about  some  of  the  conclusions  arrived  at,  we 
believe  that  the  course  is  adapted  to  promote  biblical 
scholarship,  and  that  their  expert  knozvlcdge  and 
positive  constructive  tone  give  them  exceptional  value 
at  the  present  time.  It  will  afford  us  especial  satis- 
faction to  have  them  associated  in  their  publication 
with  the  Bond  Foundation  in  this  Seminary. 


PREFACE 

THE  lectures  in  this  volume  were  delivered  be- 
fore the  Bangor  Theological  Seminary,  Ban- 
gor, Maine,  on  the  Bond  Foundation,  in  November, 
1903. 

The  study  of  beginnings  has  always  been  one  of 
especial  interest  to  me,  and  my  studies  and  archaeo- 
logical researches  have  been  particularly  devoted  to 
the  investigation  of  beginnings.  It  was,  therefore, 
with  peculiar  pleasure  that  I  received,  some  three 
years  since,  an  invitation  to  treat  the  theme  of 
Hebrew  beginnings  in  a  course  of  lectures.  These 
lectures  deal  with  matters  which  have  been  much 
under  discussion  of  late,  particularly  through  the 
publication  of  Delitzsch's  "  Babel  and  Bible," — the 
origin  of  the  stories  of  Creation,  Eden,  the  Flood, 
the  Tower  of  Babel,  and  the  literary  and  religious 
dependence  of  the  Hebrew  version  of  these  stories 
on  foreign  heathen,  especially  Babylonian,  sources. 
Devout  Christian  men  and  women  no  longer  accept  1 
these  stories  as  the  historical  record  of  events,  and 
not  a  few  are  coming  to  doubt  the  historical  char- 
acter of  the  patriarchs,  or  even  of  Moses.  This 
uncertainty  with  regard  to  the  historical   character 

vii 


viii  Preface 

of  the  contents  of  the  early  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment extends  also  to  their  religious  character.  If 
not  valuable  for  historical  purposes,  what  religious 
value,  if  any,  do  they  possess  ? 

These  lectures  deal,  first,  with  the  origin  of  the 
books  in  which  these  stories  are  contained.  What 
is  their  date  in  their  present  form,  how  and  when 
were  they  composed  and  from  what  source  did  the 
writers  draw  their  material  ?  Secondly  :  What  is 
the  nature  of  that  material  ?  How  much  of  it  is 
derived  from  foreign  myths  and  legends,  whether 
Babylonian  or  Canaanitic  ?  How  did  the  Hebrews 
come  into  possession  of  this  material  ?  Thirdly  : 
What  peculiarly  Hebrew  material,  if  any,  exists  in 
these  stories  ?  How  much  of  that  material  is  his- 
torical and  in  what  sense  ?  What  evidence  does  it 
give,  not  only  of  the  ancestry  and  political  devel- 
opment, but  still  more  of  the  religion  and  religious 
development  of  the  Hebrews  in  the  early  period? 
Fourthly  :  What  is  the  religious  value  to  us  of 
the  present  day  of  these  stories  and  the  books  in 
which  they  are  contained  ? 

I  have  considered  it  preferable  to  publish  these 
lectures  substantially  as  they  were  delivered,  retain- 
ing the  lecture  form  and  style.  If  this  results  in  a 
certain  discursive  and  repetitious  quality,  I  never- 
theless hope  that  the   directness   of   address  may 


Preface  i^ 

more   than  atone  for  those    faults  with  the  average 

reader.     It    is   my   hope   in    this  volume    to    speak 

rather  to  the  intelliq;ent   men   and   women  who  are 

interested   in   the  Bible,  in   the   early  history  of  the 

world    antl    the  development    of    religion,  than    to 

scholars    or     theological     students.     At    the    same 

time  I  shall  be   disappointed   if  I    do   not  bring  to 

the  latter  also  some  things  worthy  of  their  careful 

consideration.     The   book   is   in   a  sense  a  study  in    f f 

the  comparative  history  of  religion. 

Inasmuch   as  this  volume  is  addressed   primarily 

to  the    general    public,  I  have    thought  it  best  to 

burden  the  pages  as  little  as  possible  with  notes  or 

references. 

John  P.  Peters. 

St.  Michael's  Church, 
May  3,  1904. 


CONTENTS 


I.FrTi'FK  Page 

I.   Introductory  :  Literary  and  Archaeological        3 
II.   The  r'ormatioii  of   Israel:     The  Origin  of 

the  Twelve  Tribes  .  .  -45 

III.  The  Patriarchs  and  the  Shrines  of  Israel.       81 

IV.  Survivals — Legendary  and   Mythical         .     12S 
V.  Cosmogony  and  Primeval  History  .      196 

VI.  Tiie  Moral  Value  of  Early  Hebrew  Story     268 


Early  Hebrew  Story 


Early   Hebrew  Story 


LECTURE  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Literary  and  Archaeological 

BEFORE  \vc  proceed  to  consider  the  history 
which  lies  behind  the  quaint  and  fascinating 
stories  of  the  early  books  of  the  Old  Testament, 
especially  the  Book  of  Genesis,  we  must  agree  upon  a 
point  of  departure.  My  first  lecture,  therefore,  will 
be  of  an  introductory  character,  dealing  with  (i)  the 
date  and  origin  of  the  literature  in  which  these  stories 
are  contained,  and  (2)  the  historical  setting  which  we 
are  able,  from  other  sources,  to  give  to  those  early 
times,  chiefly  from  discoveries  in  Babylonia  and 
Egypt ;  to  a  small  extent  from  discoveries  in  Pales- 
tine itself. 

I.  Hebrew  literature  commences  in  the  days  of 
David  and  Solomon,  with  a  narrative  of  the  found- 
ing of  the  kingdom  of  David,*  practically  contem- 
poraneous with  the  events  narrated.  This  is  the  vivid 


*  This  is  contained  in  the  second  book  o(  Samuel,  chapters  I — V, 
IX— XX,  and  in  the  first  book  of  Kings,  chapters  I  and  II, 


4  Early  Hebrew  Story 

narrative  of  a  story-teller ;  there  is  in  it  none  of  that 
tendency  to  moralize  and  teach,  to  present  history 
according  to  a  theory  of  its  causes  and  of  God's 
purpose  in  His  dealings  with  men,  which  becomes 
increasingly  dominant  in  later  Hebrew  writings. 

When  we  say  that  this  was  the  beginning  of 
Hebrew  literature,  we  do  not  mean,  however,  that 
there  were  not  before  this  period  songs  and  stories, 
the  latter  sometimes  of  considerable  length,constitut- 
ing  something  like  a  series ;  but  that  these  still 
passed  about  by  word  of  mouth,  or  that  even  if  some 
laws,  songs  and  the  like  had  been  committed  to 
writing,  they  had  not  been  reduced  to  a  true  liter- 
ary shape. 

The  commencement  of  historical  writing,  which, 
as  I  have  already  indicated,  is  the  commencement 
of  Hebrew  literature,  is  contemporary  also  with  the 
commencement  of  historical  records.  Under  David 
and  Solomon  we  first  meet  with  official  annals,  con- 
taining names,  revenue  lists,  and,  on  the  religious 
side,  temple  reports  and  ceremonial  or  ritual  direc- 
tions. The  people  was  becoming  conscious  of  its 
unity  and  also  of  its  heredity.  It  was  interested  to 
record  its  own  doings,  and,  at  the  same  time,  becom- 
ing interested  to  learn  what  had  been  done  in  the 
past  and  to  tell  the  deeds  of  its  ancestors.  Conse- 
quently, about  this  period,  collections  of  old    songs 


Introductory  5 

began  to  be  made,  since  songs  commemorated  the 
great  deeds  of  the  olden  time.  The  best  known  of 
tliese  is  the  collection  entitled  the  Book  of  Yashar, 
or  Jasher.  *  And  here  let  me  note,  first,  that  the 
more  familiar  Yeshurun  or  Jeshurun  t  is  Yashar  or 
Jasher,  with  the  meaningless  noun  ending,  nn, 
atTixed  for  poetical  effect;  and,  secondly,  that  Yashar, 
in  the  longer  form  Yeshurun,  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  Israel  (  Yishra-cl)  with  the  final  r/omitted,so  that 
the  (Song)  "Book  of  Yashar"  is  the  (Song)  "Book 
of  Israel,"  and  the  "God  of  Jeshurun"  is  the  "God  of 
Israel."  We  shall  note  later  a  similar  omission  of 
the  divine  element,^_£/L.in  the  Hebrew  Jacob  and 
J  oseph  in  contrast  with  the  Babylonian  and  Egyptian 
Jaccb-el  and  Joseph-el;  and  it  may  be  said  in  pass- 
ing that  in  later  historical  times  we  find  a  similar 
omission  of  the  divine  element,  Yahu  or  Jehu,  in 
the  name  of  King  Ahaz,  who  appears  in  Assyrian 
as  Jehoahaz.  Instances  can  also  be  adduced  of  the 
interchange  of  the  divine  clement  in  names,  a  name 
appearing  in  one  case  with  Yahu,  and  in  another 
with  <7,  adoni,  etc.,  an  evidence  of  the  flexibility  of 
tiiat  clement.  Instances  may  also  be  adduced  from 
Babylonian-Assyrian  use  of  a  similar  omission  of 
the  divine  element  in  names. 


•    a  Sam.,  1,8. 

t  Cf.  for  instance  Deut.  XXXIII,   26. 


6  Early  Hebrew  Story 

I  need  not  mention  other  collections  of  songs, 
like  the  "  Wars  of  Yahaweh"*,  but  may  add  that 
there  are  a  number  of  songs  in  the  early  books  of 
the  Old  Testament,  now  embodied  in  the  historical 
narrative,  which,  in  their  origin  at  least,  are  older 
than  the  time  of  David.  All  of  these,  presumably, 
were  contained  in  some  of  the  various  collections 
made  in  the  times  of  David  and  Solomon,  or  embod- 
ied in  some  stories  current  at  that  time  and  thus 
preserved  for  future  use.  Besides  these  songs  there 
were  also  in  existence,  at  and  before  David's  time, 
old  stories,  traditions  and  laws,  many  of  which  had 
already  assumed  a  definite  form  and  some  of  which 
may  have  been  committed  to  writing.  These 
formed  the  material  for  that  story  of  the  past,  which 
soon  began  to  be  created,  for,  the  history  of  King 
David  and  the  dramatic  and  important  events  of 
the  immediate  past  having  been  compiled,  an  effort 
was  shortly  made  to  go  further  back  and  compile  a 
history  of  Israel  from  the  beginning. 

And  here  let  me  remind  you  of  the  process  of 
history  building  employed  by  our  own  English 
ancestors.  With  Alfred  the  Great,  English  histori- 
cal writing  may  be  said  to  commence  in  the  form 
of  the  Saxon  Chronicle.     This  utilized  the  meagre 

*  Num.  XXI,  14. 


Introductory  7 

Latin  Bishop's  Roll,  of  Winchester,  drawing  addi- 
tional material  from  Bede  and  other  unknown 
sources  and  carrying  the  story  down  to  date.  Then  an 
effort  was  made  to  include  the  story  of  a  still  earlier 
period,  and  the  Saxon  Chronicle  was  carried  back 
to  the  Incarnation.  After  Alfred's  time  the  Chroni- 
cle was  continued  by  various  hands  in  various  mon- 
asteries. One  or  more  of  these  forms  of  the  Chroni- 
cle, together  with  another  history,  that  of  Irish 
Marian,  which  started  with  Creation,  was  finally 
utilized  by  Florence  of  Worcester,  who  composed  a 
new  history,  in  which  it  is  almost  if  not  quite 
impossible  to  say  what  is  from  one  source,  what  from 
another  and  what  from  the  ultimate  author  or  com- 
poser. Almost  precisely  similar  was  the  growth  of 
Hebrew  history.  I  might  compare  further  the 
anonymous  and  gradual  growth  and  changes  of 
monastic  literature  in  Europe  at  large  during  the 
Dark  and  early  Middle  Ages,  to  illustrate  the  simi- 
lar gradual  growth  and  change,  and  the  similar 
anonymity  and  composite  character  and  authorship 
of  Hebrew  historical  literature.  With  perhaps  even 
greater  effect  I  might  cite  examples  from  other 
oriental  literature,  for  instances  of  similar  growth. 
]h\t  time  will  not  allow  me  to  make  such  an  excur- 
sus as  would  be  necessary  for  this  purpose.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  growth  of  Hebrew  literature  was 


8  Early  Hebrew  Story 

in  these  regards  not   phenomenal  and  strange,  but 
distinctly  normal  and  natural. 

It  seems  that  the  story  of  King  David  and  his 
kingdom  was  shortly  followed  by  a  story  of  his 
early  life,  containing  some  of  those  fascinating 
episodes  in  the  first  Book  of  Samuel.  And  now  we 
begin  to  find  competing  narratives,  as  it  were,  that 
is,  a  double  narration  of  single  events.  We  have, 
in  the  first  Book  of  Samuel,  as  it  stands  to-day,  not 
one,  but  two  narratives  of  David's  early  life  com- 
bined. These  narratives,  like  the  history  of  King 
David  and  his  kingdom,  consist  of  picturesque  and 
interesting  episodes  ;  and,  as  in  the  story  of  the 
kingdom,  there  is  little  or  nothing  of  the  supernat- 
ural. The  generation  which  witnessed  these  things 
had  not  passed  away,  there  had  not  been  time  for 
the  growth  about  these  very  human  happenings  of 
legend  and  myth  and  mystical  interpretation.  And 
Ithis  is  a  reason  why  we  mark  this  period  of  the  lat- 
ter days  of  David  and  the  commencement  of  Solo- 
mon's reign  as  the  period  of  the  beginnings  of 
Hebrew  literature.  You  have,  in  the  history  of 
David's  life,  all  the  evidences  of  the  narrative  of 
eye-witnesses,  of  a  generation  close  to  the  events 
which  are  described  ;  while,  in  proportion  as  you  go 
backward  from  that  period,  legendary  and  mythical 
features  appear  in  ever  increasing  quantity,  because 


Introdiictor 


y 


those  arc  far  away,  remote  events,  shrouded  witli  a 
glamor  of  mystery,  and  conceived  of  as  caused  by 
the  workings  of  marvelous  and  supernatural  agen- 
cies. The  story  of  Saul  is  human,  like  the  story  of 
David,  and  so  arc  parts  of  the  story  of  Samuel. 
But  by  the  side  of  this  living,  breathing  Samuel  you 
find  also  another  Samuel  of  a  quite  different  charac- 
ter. In  the  stories  of  the  Judges,  historical  tradition 
is  strongly  mixed  with  myth  and  legend.  In  the 
story  of  Samson,  as  I  shall  try  to  show  in  detail 
somewhat  later,  it  is  extremely  hard  to  pick  out  the 
actual  historical  elements  and,  to  some  extent,  the 
same  is  true  of  Jephthah.  In  the  story  of  Gideon 
you  have  two  narratives  combined,  and  in  the  analy- 
sis and  comparison  of  those  two  stories  you  will 
find  an  admirable  example  of  the  growth  of  myth 
and  legend  about  the  heroes  of  the  past. 

Back  of  this  group  of  stories,  which  is  still  not  so 
far  removed  from  the  days  of  David  and  Solomon, 
and,  therefore,  contains  still  much  vivid  and  pictur- 
esque material  of  manifest  and  direct  historic  value, 
you  come  to  a  period  for  which,  at  the  time  when 
history  began  to  be  written,  tradition  was  already 
meagre,  nami  '3 ,  the  invasion  and  settlement  of 
Canaan.     If  vill    read    your  Bible  carefully, 

you  will  fin  the  greater  part  of  that  period 

appears    to  ank.      It  is  true  that  here  and 


lo  Early  Hebrew  Story 

there  we  have  longer  traditions  of  special  events, 
such  as  the  capture  of  Jericho,  the  league  with  the 
Gibeonites  and  the  war  with  Ai ;  but  generally  the 
traditions  are  very  indistinct  and  what  has  come 
down  to  us  gives  evidence  of  having  been  writ- 
ten or  rewritten  under  the  influence  of  reflection 
and  study.  I  hope  to  show  you  that  we  have  also 
some  of  the  story  of  this  period  handed  down 
in  what  on  their  face  claim  to  be  the  stories  of  a 
still  older  period  —  the  stories  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis. 

For  the  period  preceding  the  conquest  we  have 
a  great  abundance  of  material,  but  the  history  of 
this  age  is  of  an  entirely  different  nature  from  the 
narratives  which  we  have,  for  instance,  from  the 
time  of  David.  It  is  full  of  the  miraculous.  God 
walks  and  talks  with  men  ;  angels  appear ;  all  things 
are  done  directly  by  the  agency  of  God  or  His 
messengers. 

One  naturally  asks:  Why,  if  we  have  such  a 
scarcity  of  material  for  the  period  which  lay  just  be- 
yond the  ken  of  those  writers  of  history  who  began 
their  work  in  the  time  of  David  and  Solomon,  we 
have  such  an  abundance  of  material,even  though  it  be 
of  a  different  character,  for  this  more  remote  period  ? 
There  occurred  precisely  at  this  point  a  great  crea- 
tive movement  in  the  life  of  Israel,  which  affected  it 


Introductory  ^^ 


so  profoundly  tluit  ihc  memory  of  it  echoes  through 
the  whole  of  Israel's  history  and  through  the  whole 
range  of  its  literature, — the  deliverance  from  Egypt. 
In  these  lectures  I  hope  to  be  able  to  show  you 
how  this  event  influenced  that  thought  and  that  lit- 
erature in  the  earlier  times.  As  the  War  of  the 
Revolution  has  left  an  indelible  impress  on  this 
country,  so  the  deliverance  from  Egypt  stamped 
and  influenced  the  thought  of  Israel  forever.  Any- 
one can  tell  you  to-day  of  Bunker  Hill  and  Lexing- 
ton and  Saratoga,  of  Valley  Forge  and  the  Crossing 
of  the  Delaware  and  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis. 
Anyone  can  tell  you  of  George  Washington  and  what 
he  meant  and  what  he  did  ,  but  who  can  tell  you  of 
the  men  and  the  events  which  followed,  important 
as  they  were,  the  disintegration  of  the  Federation, 
the  ultimate  creation  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  and  the  life  and  struggles  of  the  succeeding 
generations  ?  Even  in  an  age  like  this,  which  writes 
history,  and  even  with  events  so  close  at  hand,  you 
will  find  that,  while  the  common  people  of  this 
country  know  the  Revolution  and  its  story,  the  his- 
tory of  the  F'ederation  and  the  ultimate  creation  of 
the  nation  of  the  United  States  of  America  is  al- 
most unknown.  Consequently  the  story  of  the  for- 
mer is  vivid,  and  its  events  seem  close  at  hand, 
while  the  history  of  the  latter   is    very    remote    and 


12 


Early  Hebrew  Story 


vague.  This  is  small  and  insignificant ;  the  former 
period  assumes  gigantic  shape  and  heroic  propor- 
tions. In  another  age  it  would  have  been  colored 
through  and  through  with  the  supernatural.  It 
was  the  vastness  and  the  strangeness  of  the  events 
which  brought  the  ancestors  of  Israel  out  of  Egypt 
and  created  Israel  into  a  people  which  preserved 
that  memory  so  abundantly  in  stories  and  legends, 
and  at  the  same  time  supernaturalized  it.  At  or 
about  the  time  of  Solomon,  Avhen  the  effort  was 
made  to  write  the  history  of  Israel's  past,  these 
stories  and  legends  were  brought  into  consecutive 
shape  to  form  the  history  of  this  period. 

For  the  still  earlier  period,  the  period  which  pre- 
ceded the  deliverance  from  Egypt  and  the  creation 
of  the  nation,  the  compilers  of  the  history  found 
another  sort  of  material — legends  with  myth  inter- 
mixed, connected,  as  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  you 
in  another  lecture,  to  a  considerable  extent  with  the 
famous  sanctuaries  of  the  country,  and,  therefore, 
Canaanite  in  origin,  with  which,  however,  had  been 
mingled  true  Israelitish  material,  recollections  or 
imaginations  of  Israel's  past,  early  lore,  such  as  all 
nations  have  told  about  their  ancestors.  These 
stories  of  the  heroes  of  the  time  past  had  been  so 
told  and  told  again  by  story-tellers,  that  they  had 
already  assumed  a  fixed  form.     Some  of  them  are 


Introductory  ^3 

among  the  most  exquisite  gems   of  the  narrator's 
art  to  be  found  in  any  language. 

As  in  England,  history  grew  back  and  back  from 
the  narration  of  events  contemporary  with  the 
writers,  until  at  last  it  was  prefaced  with  a  story 
that  went  back  first  to  the  Incarnation  and  then  to 
the  Creation,  so,  likewise,  these  collectors  of  the 
history  of  Israel  first  carried  their  story  back  to  the 
beginning  of  the  nation  with  Moses,  and  then  back 
further  still,  by  means  of  this  legendary  lore  of  the 
remote  past,  to  what  one  might  call  the  incarnation 
of  the  nation  in  Abraham.  But  even  this  was  not 
the  beginning  ;  and  finally  there  was  prefixed  a  nar- 
rative which  told  of  the  creation  of  the  world,  of 
the  long-lived  men  of  the  primeval  world,  of  the 
great  flood  that  destroyed  mankind,  of  the  division 
of  the  nations  by  the  growth  of  different  languages, 
of  the  development  of  civilization,  the  origin  of 
musicians,  iron-workers,  city  dwellers  and  the  like. 
These  stories  contain  the  natural  speculations  of  a 
simple  people  with  regard  to  the  beginnings  of  all 
things.  But  these  stories  did  not  originate  with 
the  compilers  of  the  history.  They  found  them 
already  in  existence.  They  were  a  part  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  Canaanites,  the  wisdom  of  their 
higher  culture,  which  the  Hebrews  found  and  bor- 
rowed ;  and  so  it  is  that  we  find  similar  cosmogonies 


H  Early  Hebrew  Story 

and  culture  myths  among  the  neighboring  and  kin- 
dred Phoenicians.  Of  the  relation  of  these  to  the 
Babylonian  cosmogonies  and  primeval  myths,  more 
anon. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  this  first  history,  compiled 
after  Israel  had  become  a  settled  people,  with  a  cap- 
ital city,  a  king  and  a  court.  But  this  history  was 
never  completed.  It  was  added  to  as  time  went 
on  and  carried  forward  to  include  new  reigns  and 
new  events.  It  was  changed  by  the  writer  or  the 
generation  which  inherited  it  from  the  past,  for  a 
written  work  was  the  property  of  him  who  possessed 
it,  in  a  sense  which  you  and  I  no  longer  know.  The 
owner  made  it  his  own  by  changing  and  adapting 
it ;  a  practice  not  peculiar  to  the  history  of  Israel 
nor  even  to  the  literature  of  the  Orient  in  the 
remote  past,  for  this  again  we  find  even  in  the 
monkish  chronicles  of  our  own  ancestors  in  England. 
These  monkish  chronicles  were  the  possession  and 
the  creation  of  a  monastery  or  a  locality,  not  of  an 
individual ;  and  so,  likewise,  the  story  of  Israel, 
which  I  have  attempted  to  describe,  was  the  posses- 
sion and  creation  of  a  region  and  a  lineally  descended 
group  of  workers,  that  is,  a  school,  not  an  individ- 
ual. 

This  history,  or  so  much  of  it  as  has  come  down 
to  us,  designated  as  J  by  the  modern  critics  in  their 


Introductory  '5 

analysis  of  Genesis  and  the  following  books  of  the 
Old  Testament,  because  it  uses  the  name  Yahawch 
(German  Jahveh)  for  Israel's  God,  and  because  it 
was  Judican  in  origin,  now  constitutes  a  part  of  our 
Pentateuch  and  the  succeeding  historical  books, 
Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel  and  Kings.  Modern  critics 
further  use  the  designations  J'  ,  J~  ,  etc.,  which 
means  that  in  this  narrative  they  can  trace,  as  they 
believe,  different  hands  and  different  dates,  although 
the  whole  belongs  to  one  school.  With  this  sub- 
tlety of  analysis,  which  tends  at  present  to  be,  I 
think,  somewhat  too  subtle,  we  need  have  nothing 
to  do,  except  to  recognize  the  fact,  which  I  have 
already  endeavored  to  express,  of  continued  growth 
and  change  in  the  narrative.  This  narrative  began 
to  be  compiled,  as  I  have  stated,  in  Jerusalem  in 
the  time  of  David  or  Solomon,  and,  so  far  at  least 
as  the  earlier  periods  are  concerned,  was  completed, 
if  that  can  be  called  completion  which  continued  to 
grow  in  the  method  I  have  endeavored  to  explain, 
not  later  than  the  9th  century  B.  C. 

After  Solomon's  death  the  kingdom  of  Israel  was 
divided  into  two  parts.  The  northern  and  larger 
part,  under  Jeroboam  as  king,  continued  to  be 
known  as  Israel,  the  smaller  southern  part,  which 
adhered  to  the  dynasty  of  David  and  retained  the 
capital,    Jerusalem,  was    called    Judah.     While    in- 


i6  Early  Hebrew  Story 

ferior  in  extent  of  country  and  natural  resources  to 
Israel,  Judah  was  superior  in  accumulated  wealth, 
and  in  its  possession  of  the  capital  and  the  Temple. 
Such  learning  and  such  literature  as  existed  at  the 
time  of  the  division,  and  through  the  greater  part 
of  the  first  century  following  that  event,  were 
Judsean.  In  Israel  the  first  century  was  a  period 
of  turbulence  and  instability.  Dynasty  followed 
dynasty  in  rapid  succession.  There  was  no  fixed 
and  stable  capital.  It  was  not  a  time  favorable  for 
literary  activity.  But  in  the  9th  century  a  strong 
man,Omri,  usurped  the  throne,  established  a  dy- 
nasty which  lasted  for  over  forty  years,  and  built  a 
city,  Samaria,  which  became  the  permanent  capital 
of  the  northern  kingdom.  From  this  time  on,  the 
greater  natural  wealth  and  strength  of  Israel  began 
to  tell,  and  Israel  achieved  in  all  respects  superior- 
ity over  the  smaller  kingdom  of  Judah.  With 
Omri  and  his  son  Ahab  conditions  were  created 
favorable  to  literary  development  in  Israel,  just  as 
had  been  the  case  in  Judah  in  the  time  of  David 
and  Solomon,  and  with  this  period  begins  an  Israel- 
ite history  similar  in  general  content  to  the  Judaean 
history  already  described.  The  advance  in  civili- 
zation, in  the  humanities,  and,  above  all,  in  religious 
thought  which  had  taken  place  in  the  century 
intervening  since  the  composition   of  the  latter,  is 


Introductory  J  7 

niirrorcd  in  this  new  liistory.  It  is  less  antliropo- 
morpliic  than  the  JudcX-an  history,  and  more  moral ; 
so  that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  descriptions  of  God's 
dealing  with  men  are  less  personal,  less  naive  and 
less  primitive,  and  on  the  other  hand  things  which 
were  narrated  without  prejudice  in  the  Juda^an 
narrative  are  here  condemned.  The  historian  is 
beginning  to  look  at  things  from  what  we  com- 
monly call  the  prophetical  standpoint,  that  point 
of  view  which  exhibits  itself  more  fully  in  the 
works  of  the  writing  prophets  of  Israel.  This 
Israelite  narrative  is  commonly  designated  as  Eby  ^ 
the  critics,  because  of  the  characteristic  use  for  the 
pre-Mosaic  period  of  Elohim  instead  of  Yahaweh 
as  the  name  of  God.  As  in  the  case  of  the  Juda.'an 
narrative,  so  here,  also,  the  critics  differentiate 
FJ,  E-',  E-^,  etc.,  to  indicate,  as  I  have  already  ex- 
plained, certain  differences,  which  seem  to  indicate 
a  difference  of  hands  and  dates.  In  general  this 
narrative  of  history  was  parallel  with  the  Juda:an  '' 
narrative,  except  only  that  it  seems  to  have  beguir^ 
with  Abraham,  while  the  other  commenced  with 
creation.  It  grew  in  the  same  manner  and  its  com 
pletion  —  understanding  completion  in  the  same 
sense — may  be  ascribed  to  a  period  about  a  century 
later  than  that  of  the  Judiean  narrative,  in  the 
Sth  century  B.  C.  just  before  the  writing  prophets 
begin  their  work. 


i^  Early  Hebrew  Story 

These  prophets,    who  began    their   activity    some- 
what before  the  middle  of  the  8th  century  B.  C,  in 
the  persons  of  Amos  and   Hosea,  themselves  suc- 
cessors of  a  line  of   speaking  prophets,  of   whom 
Elijah  is  the  most  famous  example,  dominated,  by 
the  latter  half  of  that  century,  the  whole  thought  of 
Israel,  or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  the  thought 
of  that  part  of  the  nation  which  has  come  down  to 
us,  the  thought  which  ultimately  prevailed.     This 
thought  is  characterized  by  a  highly  monotheistic 
conception   of  God  as  the  creator  and  lord  of  all, 
from  whom  come  both  good    and  ill,  and  who  is 
identified  with    increasing   emphasis   as   Yahaweh, 
the    special    God  of    Israel.     That  he,  the  God  of 
Israel,  brought  good  or  evil,  gave  victory  or  defeat, 
welfare   or  misfortune,  was  due   to    the    deeds   or 
/misdeeds  of  his  people,  and  those  deeds  or  misdeeds 
^  were  viewed  from  a  rnoral,  not  a  ritual  or  religious 
standpoint. 

The  predominance  of  this  prophetic  conception 
involved  a  re-examination  of  history.  The  stories 
of  the  heroes  of  the  past,  their  victories  and  defeats, 
became  something  more  than  mere  episodes.  They 
were  expressions  of  God's  pleasure  of  God's  wrath  ; 
victory  or  defeat  found  their  explanation  in  the 
good  or  the  evil  done  by  the  nation. 

In  722-1   Samaria  was  finally  conquered,  and  the 


Introductory  ^9 


flower  of  its  population  deported  by  the  Assyrians. 
This  conquest  had  precisely  the  same  effect  upon 
Jerusalem  and  Judah  which  the  capture  of  Constan- 
tinoplc  by  the  Turks  in  1453  A.D.  had  upon  Rome 
and  the  West.  Thinking  men  and  literature  alike 
were  driven  from  the  one  center  to  the  other,  the 
result  being  a  renaissance  of  culture  and  literature, 
followed  by  a  religious  reformation  in  the  other 
kingdom  and  capital.  Israelite  literature — that  Isra- 
elite historical  narrative  which  I  have  just  described, 
the  tales  of  the  prophets,  from  which  are  drawn  the 
stories  of  Elijah,  Elisha,  Micaiah,  etc.,  in  our  Books 
of  Kings,  Songs,  Psalms,  Prophecies  and  other  pro- 
ductions of  the  period  of  Israel's  golden  age — now 
bccc^me  the  property  of  Judah  and  were  interpreted  |^ 
to  it  with  force  and  fervoi  by  the  more  cultured 
refugees  and  immigrants  who  found  their  way  thi- 
ther from  Samaria. 

So  it  is  that  in  tlie  time  of  Hezekiah  anew  period 
of  literary  activity  began  in  Jerusalem,  a  period  in 
which  the  new  literature  and  the  new  thought  of  Is- 
rael became,  to  a  large  extent,  dominant.  A  new 
history  of  the  past  was  formed  by  the  combination 
of  the  JudcX'an  and  Israelite  narratives  in  one  whole 
(known  by  the  critics  as  J  E),  the  component  parts 
of  which  and  the  hand  of  the  compiler  are  not  al- 
ways distinguishable.     This  new  history  was  in  its 


20  Early  Hebrew  Story 

turn  colored  and  modified  by  that  prophetic  spirit 
derived  by  Judah  from  Israel,  which,  during  the 
7th  century,  dominated  the  entire  religious  thought 
of  the  nation,  as  it  has  come  down  to  us,  and  which 
has  found  such  notable  expression  in  the  Book  of 
Deuteronomy  that  the  critics  call  this  recension  of 
the  history  of  the  past  Deuteronomic.  That  re- 
cension you  will  observe  in  its  most  characteristic 
form  in  the  settings  of  the  stories  of  the  Book  of 
Judges.  You  will  remember  their  general  form:  The 
children  of  Israel  sinned,  therefore  God  delivered 
them  into  the  hand  of  so  and  so,  who  oppressed 
Israel  so  many  years  (usually  a  generation  or  a  half 
a  generation).  Then,  when  they  cried  unto  Yaha- 
weh,  he  raised  up  a  deliverer  in  the  person  of  so  and 
so.  Then  comes  the  narrative  and  then  the  Deuter- 
onomic closing  section:  So  and  so  judged  Israel,  or 
the  land  had  rest  such  and  such  a  length  of  time. 
The  stories  themselves  are  sometimes  more  and 
sometimes  less  retouched  by  the  hand  of  this  Deu- 
teronomic reviser,  who  has  brought  the  Judaean  and 
Israelite  histories  into  one  whole  and  is  now  regard- 
ing them  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  philosophy 
of  history,  as  he  understands  it,  and  interpreting  the 
meaning  of  this  history  to  the  people,  to  the  end 
that  by  the  contemplation  of  God's  dealings 'in  the 
past  they  shall  be  guided  in  the  future.     This  work, 


Introductory 


21 


from  its  similarity  in  thought  and  phraseology  to 
the  main  body  of  our  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  the  cri- 
tics indicate  by  thelette^D,  while  the  letter  R,\vith 
various  signs  attached  to  it,  indicates  in  critical  phra- 
seology different  reviews  or  recensions.  But  it  is 
not  my  object  to  examine  in  detail  these  critical 
processes ;  rather  my  purpose  is  to  lay  before  you  a 
general  presentation  of  the  origin,  growth  and 
present  condition  of  the  literary  material  witii 
which  we  have  to  deal  ;  since  a  fair  understanding  of 
the  literary  problem  is  essential  to  a  comprehen- 
sion of  the  means  by  which  we  must  attempt  to 
reach  the  history  lying  behind  the  story. 

The  writing  of  history  did  not  stop  with  the 
period  of  the  Deuteronomists.  The  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  Babylonian  exile  forced  on  the 
minds  of  the  Jewish  leaders  a  further  reconsidera- 
tion of  religious  problems.  The  political  destruc- 
tion of  the  nation  brought  a  new  class,  new  inter- 
ests and  new  thoughts  to  the  front.  The  priests 
had  always  played  an  important  part  in  the  life  and 
story  of  the  people,  a  part  which,  I  think,  modern 
criticism  has  tended  unduly  to  minimize,  so  far  as 
the  prc-exilic  period  is  concerned.  To  the  priests 
we  are  indebted  primarily  for  those  codes  of  laws 
— oracles,  statutes  and  decisions — which  we  find 
embodied  in  both  the  Jud;ean  and   Israelite  histo- 


22 


Early  Hebrew  Story 


ries.     In  Judah,  thanks  to  the  Temple,  the  priests 
played  a    far   more  important  part  in  molding  the 
thought  and  life  of  the  nation  than  in  Israel.     Here 
also  priest  and  prophet  showed  a  tendency  to  unite. 
This  union  finds  expression  in  Deuteronomy.     The 
priests  were  the  depositories  of  tradition,  the  ex- 
pounders of  God's  oracles,  and  hence  the  interpre- 
ters   into    the   conditions    of  the    present    of    the 
customs  and  rules  of  the  past.     They  were,  accord- 
ingly, both  custodians  and  makers  of  law,  and  that 
law  was  ceremonial  and  moral,  religious  and  secular, 
to  make  distinctions  unknown  to  those  days.     Deu- 
teronomy  was  a  didactic  promulgation  of  this  law 
for  popular  use,  in   content  legal   and   priestly,  in 
spirit    and   expression   moral   and   prophetic.     The 
stories  of  the  greater  prophets  of  Judah  display  a 
similar    connection    between    priest    and    prophet, 
Isaiah's  visions  show  a  tendency  to  connect  them- 
selves  with  the  Temple,  its  forms  and  its  worship. 
Both  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  were  of  priestly  family. 
The   former  shows  a  decided    Low  Church,  icono- 
clastic tendency ;  the  latter  is  a  High-Churchman, 
to  whom  the  Temple,  with  its  traditions,  its  laws,  its 
ritual  and  ceremonial,  are  matters  of  importance. 
And  in  this  Ezekiel  represents    the  prevailing  ten- 
dency of  his  time,  the  ecclesiastical,  legal  and  cere- 
monial tendency.  With  the  destruction  of  the  politi- 


I 


i 


-6 


i  UNIV 

Introaiictory 

Cell  life,  the  relative  preponderance  of  the  religious- 
ecclesiastical  life  was  increased.  Just  as  in  the 
Turkish  Empire  the  Greek,  Armenian  and  other 
nations,  politically  annihilated  by  the  conquest,  }'ct 
survive  throui^h  and  by  their  churches  and  ecclesi- 
astical organizations,  with  a  resultant  strengthening 
of  the  hierarchy  and  emphasis  on  the  legal-cereino- 
nial  aspect  of  religion,  so  in  and  after  the  exile  the 
Jews  survived  as  a  religion  only,  with  consequent 
emphasis  on  the  legal-ceremonial  side  of  that  re- 
ligion. In  connection  with  this  new  development 
came  a  new  study  of  the  past,  and  a  new  study  of 
the  philosophy  of  history.  The  destruction  of 
the  Temple  and  the  impossibility  of  continuing 
the  sacrifices  and  ceremonial  of  its  worship  led  to 
a  loving  and  careful  collection  of  sacrificial  and 
ceremonial  laws,  and  in  part  to  their  development, 
free  from  the  influence  of  practice,  on  logical, 
theoretical  lines.  The  minutix"  of  laws  and  ceremo- 
nies began  to  take  on  a  new  importance  and  to  play 
a  part  in  the  interpretation  of  the  meaning  of  the 
punishment  which  had  befallen  Israel.  It  was  clear 
that  these  calamities  could  be  the  result  only  of 
wrong-doing.  Was  this  wrong-doing  connected  with 
the  neglect  in  the  past  of  ritual  and  ceremonial  re-  ^ 
quircments?  Had  Israel  failed  to  live  up  to  the 
law  of  r,.i(l    in   these  particulars?     The  exilic  and 


J 


24"  Early    Hebrew   Story 

early  post-exilic  period  seems  to  have  been  a  time 
of  great  mental  and  moral  agitation  and  you  will 
find  writers  of  that  period  who  represent  a  very 
broad,  as  well  as  a  very  narrow  view.  But  it  was 
the  school  which  emphasized  the  minutiae,  which 
codified  the  ritual  and  ceremonial  law,  which  inter- 
preted the  entire  past  in  relation  to  the  law  thus 
codified  and  looked  forward  to  the  rehabilitation  of 
Israel  by  the  observance  of  that  law  which  ulti- 
mately became  dominant,  and  whose  hand  we  recog- 
nize in  a  new  treatment  of  the  ancient  history  dating 
from  this  period.  This  is  distinctly  a  legal  and 
priestly  treatment ;  it  is  contained  in  what  is  called 
by  the  critics  the  Priest  Code,  indicated  in  their 
analysis  by  the  letter  P.  Here  laws  are  brought 
together  in  a  cadre  of  history,  and  that  history,  go- 
ing back  to  the  creation,  aims  to  show  that  the  great 
principles  of  the  Law  were  laid  down  at  the  begin- 
ning or  were  even  pre-existent.  We  find  the  law  of 
the  Sabbath  set  forth  in  the  account  of  creation,  and 
in  the  same  spirit  the  laws  of  sacrifice,  clean  and 
unclean,  circumcision  and  the  like  are  taught  and 
expounded  through  the  stories  of  the  antediluvians, 
the  flood  and  the  patriarchs. 

But  the  Priest  Code  has  not  come  down  to  us  by 
itself.  In  the  period  after  the  exile,  toward  the 
end,  perhaps,  of  the  5th  century,  in  the  effort  which 


Introductory  -5 

was  made  at  tliat  time  to  utilize  and  combine  all 
the  literature  of  the  past,  that  part  of  the  Deuter- 
onomic  histories,  whose  growth  I  have  described, 
covering  the  period  to  the  conquest  and  settlement 
of  Canaan,  and  this  priestly  history  were  wrought 
together  into  our  Hexateuch,  that  is,  the  five  books 
of  tiie  Law,  with  Joshua.  (The  latter  book  was  in 
a  way  separated  from  the  rest  as  less  sacred,  the 
peculiarly  sacred  part  being  that  which  dealt  with 
the  Law  and  which  ended  with  the  death  of  Moses, 
our  Pentateuch).  In  the  later  historical  books. 
Judges,  Samuel  and  Kings,  we  can  detect,  also, 
though  to  a  less  extent,  a  touch  of  the  revising 
hand  of  this  same  priestly  school.  The  full  devel- 
opment of  the  thought  of  this  school  for  this  period 
is  represented,  however,  in  a  separate  and  later 
work  which  runs  parallel  with  the  other  but  was 
never  combined  with  it.  Chronicles,  Ezra  and  Nehe- 
miah. 

To  sum  up,  we  have,  in  those  books  which  con- 
tain the  early  story  of  Israel,  first  a  simple  and  very 
uncritical  narrative,  delighting  in  episodes  and  per- 
sonal adventures,  the  Jud.can  story,  called  by  the 
critics  J.  A  little  more  advanced  in  its  moral  and 
religious  standpoint,  a  little  less  naive  is  the  Isracl- 
itic  narrative,  covering  in  general  the  same  ground, 
called  by  the  critics  E.  ^Out  of  these  two,  um"ted 


26  Early  Hebrew  Story 

into  one,  and  treated  with  a  religious  presupposi- 
tion based  on  the  teaching  of  the  prophets,  was 
formed  the  Deuteronomic  history.  This  Deuter- 
onomic  history  was  later  combined  in  its  early  part 
with  another  history  written  from  the  priestly  stand- 
point, laying  emphasis  on  fQr.in.a«4-<:€-remony,  sacri- 
fice and  ritual,  judging  events  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  Law,  and  interpreting  history  from  the  crea- 
tion onward  from  a  legal  and  priestly  standpoint. 
This  priestly  w^ork,  combined  with  the  Deuteron- 
omic, gives  us  our  present  Hexateuch,  the  first  six 
books  of  our  Bible. 

II.  And  now,  having  explained  to  you  the  liter- 
ary critical  standpoint  accordirig  to  which  I  analyze 
and  interpret  these  old  stories  of  the  early  books  of 
the  Bible,  let  me  try  to  state  what  we  know  from 
other  sources  than  the  Bible  about  the  early  history 
of  the  world  of  Israel's  thought  and  action,  v/hich 
may  throw  light  upon  the  history  that  lies  behind 
those  stories. 

From  present  indications  it  would  seem  that  as 
early  as  about  7000  B.  C.  both  Babylonia  and  Egypt 
were  occupied  by  civilized  men,  who  had  so  far 
advanced  in  civilization  as  to  build  cities,  manufac- 
ture pottery,  etc.  The  art  of  writing,  also,  w^as 
independently  developed  in  both  these  countries  at 
a  very  early  time.     The  earliest  specimens  of  writ- 


Introductory  -7 

ing  which  wc  have,  which  may  possibly  date  from 
4000  B.  C.  or  tliercabouts  in  both  lands,  show  a 
long  period  of  antecedent  development.  At  that 
early  date  both  the  Babylonian  cuneiform  and  the 
Ei^yptian  hieroglyphic  systems  were  already  so  far 
conventionalized  that,  it  may  be  safely  said,  the 
difference  between  the  original  picture  writing  from 
which  each  was  derived  and  the  earliest  specimens 
of  writing  yet  f(nind  in  Egypt  and  Babylonia  respec- 
tively are  greater  than  the  difference  between  those 
early  specimens  of  writing  and  the  later  developed 
script  of  both  regions.  It  is  clear,  from  other  evi- 
dence, also,  that  both  these  countries  had,  as  early  as 
the  fifth  millennium  B.  C,  a  very  long  period  of  the 
development  of  the  arts  of  civilization  behind 
them. 

Babylonia,  at  the  earliest  period  to  which  our 
information  now  extends,  was  occupied  by  a  non- 
Semitic  race,  which  we  commonly  call  Sumerian,  by 
whom,  apparently,  the  cuneiform  system  of  writing 
was  developed,  and  from  whom,  at  all  events,  it  was 
borrowed  by  the  Semitic  Babylonians.  These 
Sumerians  were  the  parents  not  onl)'  of  the  later 
Babylonian  writing,  but  also  to  a  large  degree  of 
Babylonian  religious  ideas  and  practices. 

At  the  earliest  period  to  which  our  information 
now  extends  there  existed  in  Palestine  also,  as  exca- 


28  Early  Hebrew  Story 

vations  at  Gezer  and  elsewhere  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate, a  non-Semitic  population,  at  a  low  stage  of 
civilization,  whose  places  of  worship  and  perhaps 
even  their  more  permanent  habitations  appear  to 
have  been  caves  cut  out  of  the  rock.  These  people 
did  not  bury,  but  burned  their  dead. 

Somewhere,  perhaps,  about  3000  B.  C,  a  change 
occurred  in  the  racial  affinities  of  the  population 
of  Palestine.  A  people  whose  skull  and  body- 
measurements  show  them  to  have  been  Semitic,  and 
practically  identical  with  the  peasant  population 
now  in  possession  of  the  country  took  the  place  of 
the  former  pre-Semitic  population.  Burial  of  the 
dead  took  the  place  of  burning.  The  troglodytic 
shrines  and  dwellings  were  exchanged  for  houses 
built  of  stone  above  the  ground.  In  many  cases 
the  ancient  sacred  caves  continued  to  be  regarded 
with  reverence  and  became  sanctuaries  of  the  new 
religion.  Often,  however,  the  caves  of  the  earlier 
inhabitants  were  turned  into  store-houses,  cisterns, 
and  the  like.  Sacred  stones  were  set  up  and  wor- 
shipped, either  singly  or  in  lines  or  circles.  We 
find  evidences  also  of  that  sacrifice  of  children  and 
that  phallic  and  lascivious  worship  which  the  proph- 
ets of  Israel  describe  as  practised  among  the  Canaan- 
ites  and  taken  over  by  the  Israelites  from  them. 

At  about  the   same  period  occurred  a  change  of 


Introductory  -9 

population  or  of  the  dominant  population  in  Baby- 
lonia. There,  also,  burial  of  the  dead  took  the  place 
of  burning.  Apparently  this  was  due  to  a  Scinitic 
invasion  from  the  south,  for  Arabia  seems  to  have 
been  the  orii^inal  home  of  the  Semites,  which,  mov- 
ing northward  in  wave  after  wave,  overran  the  coun- 
tries both  east  and  west,  as  other  similar  invaders 
from  the  same  region  were  destined  to  do  so  often 
in  the  succeeding  ages.  With  the  time  of  Sargon  of 
Akkad,  whose  reign  I  would  place  perhaps  in  the 
neighborhood  of  2800  B.  C,  Semitic  domination  was 
securely  established  in  Babylonia.  The  old  Sumer- 
ian  script  had  by  that  time  been  adapted  to  the 
Semitic  tongue  and  Sumerian  religious  ideas  appro- 
priated and  adopted  by  the  Semites.  The  Semitic 
invaders  of  Canaan  did  not,  like  their  comrades  to 
the  east,  find  a  high  civilization  in  the  country  which 
they  overran.  Hence  the  striking  difference  in  civ- 
ilization between  the  earliest  Semitic  inhabitants  of 
liabylonia  and  Canaan,  respectively,  in  spite  of  their 
very  close  kinship. 

The  inscriptions  of  Sargon  and  his  successors  show 
us  that  at  his  time  there  was  fairly  close  contact 
between  Babylonia  and  Palestine.  Sargon,  and,  for 
that  matter,  some  of  his  predecessors  and  many  of 
his  successors,  claimed  dominion  over  Palestine  and 
made  expeditions  thither.   From  this  period,  roughly 


30  Early  Hebrew  Story 

3000  B.  C,  onward,  until  the  i6th  century  B.  C, 
a  fairly  close  political  connection  was  maintained 
between  Babylonia  and  Palestine,  and  Babylonian 
civilization,  culture  and  religion  gradually  extended 
westward  to  the  Mediterranean.  To  the  east  of 
Babylonia  lay  another  country,  Elam,  which  also 
derived  from  Babylonia  at  a  very  early  period  its 
civilization,  including  the  cuneiform  system  of  writ- 
ing. Between  the  Elamites  and  the  Babylonians 
ensued  in  the  third  millennium  a  long  struggle  for 
supremacy,  which  resulted  in  the  temporary  estab- 
lishment of  Elamite  dominion  in  Babylonia,  about 
2300  B.  C,  with  Larsa,  the  Ellasar  of  the  Bible,  as 
its  capital. 

A  little  before  this,  while  Ur  in  southern  Babylo- 
nia was  the  chief  city  of  Babylonia,  perhaps  about 
2500  B.  C,  a  new  wave  of  Semitic  invaders  moved 
northward  out  of  Arabia.  They  were  unable  to 
conquer  that  part  of  Babylonia  nearest  Arabia,  of 
which  Ur  was  the  capital,  but  succeeded  in  estab- 
lishing a  new  kingdom  in  the  north  with  Babylon 
as  its  capital.  It  was  to  this  supposed  second  Ara- 
bian wave  of  immigration  that  the  famous  Babylo- 
nian dynasty  belonged,  generally  known  by  the 
name  of  Hammurabi,  although  Hammurabi  was  not 
in  reality  the  first  king  of  the  dynasty,  and  his  an- 
cestors had  ruled  over  Babylon  for  a  century  and  a 


Introductory  3^ 

half  or  more  before  his  time.  It  is  in  the  inscrip- 
tions of  the  time  of  this  Hammurabi  dynasty  that 
wc  find  names  of  the  same  type  as  Abram  or  Abiram, 
Father  is  exalted,  Ahirani,  Ihothcr  is  exalted,  etc., — 
names  wiiich  indicate  a  relation  of  the  god  as 
father,  brother,  uncle,  ab,  ah,  am,  which  we  find  in 
the  earliest  Hebrew  names.  In  these  inscriptions 
also  we  find  the  names  Yagub-ilu  and  Yasup-ilu, 
wiiich  arc  identical,  except  that  the  Babylonian  has 
the  god-name,  ////,  at  the  end,  with  the  Jacob  and 
Joseph  so  familiar  to  us  in  the  older  Hebrew  narra- 
tives. This  identity  of  names  of  the  Israelite  patri- 
archal traditions  \vitir  names  of  "tKe"  Hammurabi 
period  in  Babylon  suggests  also  a  kinship  between 
the  peoples  who  used  those  naincs.  It  is  accord- 
ingly now  supposed  that  this  second  wave  of  Se- 
mitic invasion,  which  established  itself  in  Babylon 
about  2500  B.  C,  was  the  eastern  half  of  the  same 
Semitic  movement,  which,  overrunning  Palestine, 
{)roduced  there  the  characteristic  Canaanite  popula- 
tion and  civilization.  It  is  suggested,  also,  that  this 
same  northward  .-iiovement  out  of  Arabia  made 
itself  felt  in  Eg)  pt.  Attention  is  called  to  Semitic 
names  of  the  same  type  (for  instance,  Yagub-her, 
the  equivalent  of  Yagub-el.  since  Egyptian  r  = 
Semitic  /),  which  occur  in  the  fragmentary  Egyptian 
monuments  of  the  dark  period  succeeding  the  old 


32  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Kingdom.  Certain  it  is  that  at  this  time  Egyptian 
contact  with  Palestine  became  closer  than  before. 

Babylonian  inscriptioas  show  us,  as  already  stated, 
that  Babylonian  domination  in  Palestine  continued 
through  the  whole  of  the  third  millennium.  The 
Elamite  conquest  did  not  change  these  conditions, 
and  we  find  that  after  Babylon,  by  the  expulsion  of 
the  Elamites,  had  become  the  capital  of  Babylonia, 
under  Hammurabi,  the  cities  of  the  West  Land 
became  its  tributaries,  as  they  had  been  tributaries 
of  the  kings  of  Ur  before  the  Elamite  conquest. 
These  conditions,  as  already  stated,  continued  to 
prevail  until  the  i6th  century  B.  C. 

How  profound  and  far-reaching  was  the  influence 
exerted  upon  Palestine  by  Babylonia  during  this 
period  becomes  more  apparent  the  more  precise  our 
knowledge  becomes.  Numerous  place  names  in 
Palestine  make  it  clear  that  Babylonian  deities  were 
worshipped  there.  We  have,  for  instance,  Ashtarti, 
Ashteroth  and  Ashteroth  Karnaim,  Anathoth,  Beth 
Shemesh,  Bit  Ninib,  Uru-salim  or  Jerusalem,  Mt. 
Sinai,  Mt.  Nebo,  evidence  of  the  worship  of  the 
Babylonian  deities,  Ishtar,  Anath,  Shamash,  Ninib, 
Salman,  Sin  and  Nebo,  not  to  recount  places  named 
from  Dagon,  Rimmon  and  others.  The  appearance 
of  places  with  such  and  similar  names  as  Levitical 
cities,  sacred  mountains,  sanctuaries  of  refuge  and 


Introductory  33 

the  like  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  shows  us  that  the 
Hebrews  on  their  part  adopted  from  theCanaanites 
what  the  Canaanitcs  had  originally  adopted  from 
the  Babylonians.  _  The  same  is  true  with  regard  to 
magical  practices.  The  story  of  the  marriage  of  the 
sons  of  the  gods  with  the  daughters  of  men  (Gen. 
VI)  is  paralleled  in  the  conceptions  of  Sumerian 
demonology  which  were  taken  over  by  the  Baby- 
lonians,  and  which  are  preserved  in  the  bilingual 
incantation  tablets.  Specific  names,  like  the  Lilith, 
famous  especially  later  in  rabbinic  lore  as  the  demon 
wife  of  Adam,  the  sliedim,  the  satyrs  so  often  men- 
tioned in  the  Hebrew  Prophets,  are,  as  we  now 
know,  actually  Sumerian  words  which  passed  from 
Sumerian  to  Babylonian,  from  Babylonian  to  Can- 
aanite  and  from  Canaanitc  to  Hebrew.  So,  also, 
the  Hebrew  word  for  temple,  hekal,  was  borrowed 
ultimately  from  the  egai  of  the  ancient  pre-Semitic 
inhabitants  of  Babylonia.  But  I  need  not  at  this 
point  multiply  proofs  of  the  dependence  of  Canaan 
upon  I^abylonia.  Suffice  it  to  call  attention  here 
to  the  fact,  brought  out  by  the  famous  discovery  of 
the  Tel  cl-Amarna  tablets  in  1888,  that,  so  com- 
pletely did  Babylonian  influence  dominate  Canaan 
1 50  years  after  Babylonian  rule  had  given  way  to 
Egyptian,  that  the  language  and  script  of  ofificial 
intercourse  between  Canaan  and  Egypt  still  contin- 


34  Early  Hebrew  Story 

ucd  to  be  the  Babylonian  cuneiform.  The  letters 
found  at  Tel  el-Amarna  from  the  governors  and 
dependent  princes  in  Palestine  to  their  Egyptian 
over-lord  were  written  in  the  cuneiform  script  and 
the  Babylonian  language.  A  few  specimens  of 
similar  correspondence  have  been  found  in  Pales- 
tine, one  in  Lachish  and  four  in  Ta-anach  on  the 
plain  of  Esdraelon.  Similar  in  race,  as  it  would 
seem,  to  the  Babylonians,  closely  akin  in  speech, 
the  Semitic  Canaanite  inhabitants  of  Palestine 
readily  adopted  the  culture  and  the  religion  of  their 
Babylonian  over-lords  during  the  long  period  of  the 
supremacy  of  the  latter,  with  such  modifications  as 
were  natural  in  view  of  the  different  conditions  of 
their  country,  their  different  grade  of  culture  and 
their  somewhat  different  surroundings. 

It  was  in  the  i6th  century  that  the  Egyptians 
became  aggressive  in  their  relations  to  Asia,  and, 
from  being  the  invaded,  turned  invaders.  They 
overran  Palestine  and  Syria,  and  for  a  while  the 
Egyptian  empire  included  all  hither  Asia  west  of 
the  Euphrates  and  south  of  the  Taurus  mountains. 
The  Tel  el-Amarna  letters  reveal  the  condition  of 
Palestine  at  the  end  of  this  Egyptian  period,  when 
the  Egyptian  empire  was  tottering  to  its  fall. 

From  the  Egyptian  inscriptions  of  this  period 
of  conquest  we  learn  that  the  land  east  of  the  Jor. 


Introductory  35 


dan  was  called   in  early  times  Rutcn,  which,  trans- 
literated into  Semitic,  is  Lotan.     lUit  this  was,  in 
ruble  times,  the  territory  of  the    Ammonites  and 
Moabites,  who  arc  described  as  descendants  of  Lot, 
which    is   the  same   as  Lotan.     It  would  seem  as 
though  the  Ammonites  and  Moabites,  peoples  kin- 
dred to  the  Hebrews  and  belonging  apparently  to 
the  Khabiri,  whom  we  find  mentioned  in  the  Tel 
el-Amarna  letters,  entered  and  occupied,  in  the  14th 
or  following  century,  the  territory  which  had  for- 
merly  been    occupied  by  the  people  of  Ruten  or 
Lotan.     The  traditions  and  ancestry  of  the  former 
population  these  Khabiri  took  over  with  their  land, 
which  is    represented    in  the    Bible    by    the   state- 
ment  that  they  were  children  of  Lot,  the  former 
people  of  that  country.     This,  as  I  shall  endeavor  to 
show  you  later,  is  of  a  piece  with  some  of  the  other 
genealogies  which  we  shall  find  in  Palestine.     It  is 
the  statement  of  an  historical  fact  in  the  form  of  a 
family  history  and    genealogy.     The  Egyptian  in- 
scriptions show  us  also  that  in  the  i6th  century,  B. 
C,  long  before  the  Hebrew  conquest,  most  of  the 
important  cities  of  after  times  were  already  in  exis- 
tence, and  bearing  the  same  names  which  they  bore 
in  later  times, — names  which  prove  them   to  have 
been,  already  before  that  period,  the  site  of  the  cult 
of    some  Babylonian  deity.      It  was  precisely   the 


36  Early  Hebrew  Story 

cities  sacred  in  these  earlier  periods  which  became 
later  centers  of  worship  or  sacred  places  among  the 
Hebrews,  as  already  pointed  out. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  15th  century,  under 
Amenophis  III.  and  Amenophis  IV.,  commences  a 
period  of  confusion  and  turmoil.  The  Hittites  were 
pressing  downward  from  Asia  Minor  into  Northern 
Syria.  An  Aramsan  wave  of  invasion  was  begin- 
ning to  come  out  of  Arabia,  Suti  and  Khabiri  were 
pressing  in  from  the  east  and  southeast  on  the  cities 
of  Palestine,  while  Amorites,  dislodged  from  their 
former  habitations  in  the  north  by  the  invasion  of 
the  Hittites,  were  descending  into  the  same  regions 
from  another  direction.  The  Tel  el-Amarna  letters 
have  thrown  much  light  on  this  period,  when  the 
Egyptian  Asiatic  empire  was  beginning  to  decay. 
They  reveal  the  existence  in  Syria  and  Palestine  of 
numerous  small  states  subject  to  Egypt.  In  the  latter 
region  these  were  threatened  by  invasions  of  the  Suti 
and  Khabiri,  Aramaean  peoples  who  were  pressing  in 
from  the  east.  In  the  former,  as  already  stated,  they 
were  being  overwhelmed  by  the  invasion  of  Hittites 
from  the  north.  These  letters  show  us  also  that 
the  language  spoken  at  that  time  through  all  these 
regions  was  Canaanite — that  Semitic  dialect  or  lan- 
guage which  we  find  later  in  use  among  Phoenicians, 
Moabites   and  Hebrews.     According  to  their  own 


Introductory  ^7 


tradition,  as  \vc  find  it  in  the  talcs  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis  and  hitcr  in  the  ritual  of  the  Book  of  Deu- 
teronomy, the  Hebrews  were  Aramxans  by  origin.  _ 
The  word  Hebrew  appears  to  be  identical  with 
Khabiri,  the  name  of  the  people  who,  in  the  Tel  el- 
Amarna  letters,  are  mentioned  as  invading  Canaan 
at  the  end  of  the  15th  century.  Not  that  the  peo- 
ple whom  we  now  call  Hebrews  had  come  into  exist- 
ence at  that  period  :  the  name  seems  to  designate 
that  general  group  of  peoples  out  of  which  grew 
the  kindred  nations,  Ammonites,  Moabites,  Edo- 
mites  and  Israelites.  Those  disturbances,  which 
overthrew  the  Egyptian  power  in  Syria  and  Pales- 
tine, and  ultimately  brought  about  to  a  large  extent 
a  change  of  population  or  at  least  of  the  dominant 
population,  began  to  show  themselves  in  the  move- 
ments of  the  Hittites,  Amorites,  Suti  and  Khabiri 
about  the  close  of  the  15th  century  B.  C. 

At  this  period  the  ancient  world  had  reached  a 
high  stage  of  culture  and  civilization.  There  was  a 
belt  extending,  roughly  speaking,  from  China  on 
the  east  to  Spain  on  the  west,  and  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Danube  on  the  north  to  Nubia  on  the  south, 
which  may  be  said  to  have  been  included  in  the 
sphere  of  civilization  at  that  time.  Space  will  not 
permit  me  to  go  into  details  regarding  the  charac- 
ter and  extent  of  this  civilization  or  of  these  civili- 


38  Early  Hebrew  Story 

zations,  for  this  civilized  belt  represented  not  so 
much  one  civilization  as  a  number  of  independent 
civilizations.  These  civilizations  were  independent 
even  in  the  matter  of  writing,  so  that  we  find  one 
system  of  writing  in  China,  another  in  Babylonia, 
Assyria,  Elam,  etc.,  another  in  Egypt,  another 
among  the  Hittites,  another  in  Crete,  and  possibly 
still  another,  less  fully  developed,  on  the  shores  of 
Asia  Minor,  in  Cyprus  and  elsewhere  along  the  Medi- 
terranean. This  civilization,  or  these  civilizations, 
fell,  precisely  as  did  the  Roman  civilization  in  the 
first  centuries  of  our  era.  It  was  in  both  cases  in- 
vasions from  the  outside  barbarian  belt  which  caused 
the  catastrophe  and  brought  about  for  a  time  a 
period  of  chaos  and  disorder. 

It  is  when  these  civilizations  seemed  to  be  at 
their  very  height,  at  the  close  of  the  15th  or  begin- 
ning of  the  14th  century,  that  we  first  observe  the 
results  of  an  upheaval  among  and  pressure  from 
nations  outside  of  the  belt  of  civilization.  It  was 
apparently  pressure  from  behind  which  caused  the 
descent  of  the  Hittites  on  Syria  from  the  north, 
overturning  and  disturbing  the  Amorite  populations 
as  far  south  as  Palestine.  The  settlement  of  a 
Mycenaean  community  at  lalysos  in  Rhodes  about 
this  time,  as  shown  by  excavations  conducted  there, 
suggests  that  some  pressure  from  behind  was  begin- 


Introductory  39 

ning  to  be  exerted  at  the  same  period  on  the  peo- 
ples of  the  /Egitan  region — the  peo[)les  of  that 
Mycenitan  or  /Eg:can  civilization  which  has  left 
us  such  splendid  monuments  as  evidence  of  the  high 
stage  of  culture  then  reached,  but  whose  language 
and  racial  afifinities  are  as  yet  unknown  to  us. 
Indo-European  peoples  were  beginning  to  press 
down  through  and  from  the  Balkan  peninsula  into 
Greece,  the  yEga^an  Islands,  and  the  coast-lands  of 
Asia  Minor,  unsettling  and  to  some  extent  driving 
out  the  populations  formerly  occupying  these  terri- 
tories. It  was  probably,  as  already  stated,  this 
pressure  of  Indo-European  peoples  into  Asia  Minor 
which  forced  the  overflow  of  the  Hittites  into  Syria, 
thus  bringing  the  latter  people  into  conflict  with 
the  Egyptians.  This  advance  of  the  Indo-European 
peoples  southward  was  a  slow  movement,  extending 
over  a  considerable  period  of  time  and  ultimately 
involving  a  vast  extent  of  territory.  In  the  west, 
Italy  felt  its  effects  in  a  movement  of  noi Ihcin  peo- 
ples crowding  southward.  In  the  13th  century  we 
find  Sardinians  and  Etruscans  with  AchcX-ans  and 
other  European  peoples  descending  on  the  shores 
of  northern  Africa  and  the  coast-lands  of  Palestine. 
At  first  the  invaders  came  by  sea,  in  boats,  and 
attacked  the  coast-lands  only.  About  the  close  of 
the  13th  century,  however,  the  movement  assumed 


40  Early  Hebrew  Story 

greater  proportions.  A  large  part  of  Asia  Minor 
seems  to  have  been  affected  by  this  time  by  the 
pressure  from  behind,  and  we  have  the  great  land 
migration  of  the  time  of  Ramses  III.,  which  broke 
in  pieces  the  Hittite  kingdom,  driving  downward 
into  Palestine  both  Amorite  and  Hittite  fragments, 
and  deposited  the  Philistines  in  Palestine.  We 
have,  perhaps,  a  reference  to  these  movements  of  the 
Amorites  in  the  Book  of  Numbers,*  in  the  account 
of  the  Amorite  kingdoms  established  in  Bashan  and 
between  Ammon  and  Moab,  by  which  the  latter 
people  were  practically  dispossessed.  These  Amo- 
rites, the  Hebrews,  kinsfolk  of  the  Moabites,  in 
their  turn  assailed  and  conquered. 

The  height  of  this  period  of  confusion  in  the 
^Egsean  world  was  reached  in  what  is  known  in 
Greek  tradition  as  the  time  of  the  Dorian  invasion, 
about  1 200  B.  C.  Farther  eastward  we  find  similar 
conditions,  but  precisely  as  in  the  fourth  and  follow- 
ing centuries  A.  D.  the  civilization  of  the  West 
went  down  before  the  inroads  of  the  barbarians, 
giving  place,  after  the  period  of  the  dark  ages,  to  a 
new  and  higher  culture,  while  the  East  managed, 
with  great  struggle  and  after  much  loss,  to  maintain 
itself  still  for  a  long  time,  and  by  doing  so  was 
able  to  aid  in  mediating  the  best  results  of  the  old 

*  Chap.  XXI,  XXII. 


IiUroduclory  4^ 

civilization  to  the  new  born  West  before  it  sank 
down  at  last  in  decrepitude  and  decay,  so  it  was  at 
this  time.  The  yEgaian  civilization  was  over- 
wiiclnied.  Egypt  fell  into  a  state  of  decay,  the 
result  of  her  struggles  with  the  invaders  whom  she 
succeeded  in  repelling,  but  with  such  a  weakening 
and  disintegration  of  her  own  power  as  to  subject 
her  to  invasion  and  conquest  by  the  Ethiopians  of 
the  south.  liabylonia  and  Assyria  passed  into  a 
condition  of  eclipse,  from  which  they  issued  later 
to  assume  still  for  a  long  period  the  position  of 
leaders  in  civilization. 

It  was  not  only  the  north  which  poured  forth  its 
barbarous  hordes  at  this  period.  Precisely  as  in  the 
post-Christian  ages  the  civilized  world  found  itself 
invaded  by  Arabian  hordes  from  the  south,  even 
while  still  struggling  with  the  Teutons  from  the 
north,  so  it  was  now.  Arama,'an  hordes  were  pres- 
sing northward  frcjm  Arabia  at  the  same  time  that 
the  northern  peoples  were  moving  south.  The  two 
streams  met  in  Syria,  which  completely  changed  its 
character  and  its  population  at  this  period  in  con- 
sequence. 

I  shall  not  endeavor  to  note  in  detail  the  similar 
conditions  existing  further  northward  and  eastward, 
which  resulted  in  the  growth  of  new  states  in 
Armenia  and  adjacent  regions,  in  the  elimination  of 


42  Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  kingdom  of  Mitanni  in  Mesopotamia  and  the 
conquest  and  settlement  of  that  region  by  Ara- 
maeans, and  in  the  temporary  decay  of  both  As- 
syria and  Babylonia  as  the  result  of  their  struggle 
with  invading  hordes  from  north  and  south  and 
cast. 

'  Out  of  this  period  of  confusion,  these  dark  ages, 
there  sprang  up,  in  the  extreme  western  part  of 
Asia,  the  new  civilization  and  the  great  sea  power 
of  the  Phoenicians.  At  the  same  period,  inland 
and  a  little  further  south,  another  nation,  Israel, 
was  more  slowly  coming  into  being,  small  in  extent 
of  territory,  but  destined  to  exert  a  vastly  greater 
influence  on  the  civilization  and  religion  of  the 
world.  Out  of  this  period  of  darkness  also  the 
alphabet  was  born,  a  new  system  of  writing,  unlike 
the  picture  scripts  and  syllabaries  which  had  pre- 
vailed thus  far.  The  Phoenicians,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  antiquity,  were  its  inventors.  Whence 
they  derived  the  ideas  for  their  invention  is  uncer- 
tain. From  the  evidence  thus  far  at  hand,  it  would 
seem  that  the  alphabet  was  invented  somewhere, 
probably,  about  or  after  1200  B,  C.  In  1400  B.  C. 
all  Syria  and  Palestine  used  the  cumbrous  Babylon- 
ian cuneiform  script.  About  the  loth  century 
B.  C.  we  find  the  Phoenician  alphabet,  full-fledged, 
in  use  through  all  Syria,  as  well  as  in  Greece  and 


Introductory 


southern  Arabia.  Out  of  those  dark  ages,  between 
14CXD  and  1000  B.  C,  came,  therefore,  one  of  the 
great  epoch-making  discoveries  or  inventions  in  the 
history  of  mankind. 

Another  event  of  importance  in  the  history  of  " 
civih'zation  connected  with  these  dark  ages  is  tiie 
introduction  of  iron.  In  the  brilliant  civilization 
of  the  15th  century  copper  and  bronze  were  the 
metals  used  for  weapons  and  tools.  Iron  was  rare 
and  used  only  for  purposes  of  ornamejit.  But  some- 
where during  these  dark  ages  iron  took  the  place  of 
bronze,  so  that  by  about  1000  B.  C.  we  find  it  in 
general  use  as  far  west  as  Greece.  I  may  compare 
the  connection  with  the  dark  ages  of  antiquity  of 
these  two  great  events  in  the  history  of  civilization 
with  the  relation  of  the  introduction  of  printing  and 
gunpowder  to  the  close  of  the  dark  ages  of  Euro- 
pean history. 

But  to  turn  back  to  what  more  precisely  and 
directly  concerns  our  theme.  The  nation  of  Israel 
came  into  being  in  the  struggles  and  confusion  of 
these  same  dark  ages,  one  of  the  world's  great 
periods  of  travail,  between  1300  and  1000  B.  C. 
David's  reign,  which  we  may  place  about  1000 
B.  C,  represents  the  recommencement  of  a  period 
of  enlightenment.  It  was  during  liis  prosperous 
reign  and  the  more  peaceful  and  cultivated,  if  less 


44  Early  Hebrew  Story 

aggressive    rule  of    his   successor,    Solomon,    that 
Israelitic  literature  had  its  beginning. 

I  have  endeavored  to  establish  a  point  of 
departure,  both  by  an  analysis  of  the  literature 
with  which  we  have  to  deal,  and  also  by  a  sketch, 
drawn  largely  from  archaeological  sources,  of  the 
primitive  history  of  the  people  and  the  region  to 
whom  the  stories  contained  in  that  literature  belong-. 
You  will  find,  I  think,  that  these  stories  themselves 
illustrate  and  illuminate,  when  properly  understood, 
that  ancient  pre-historic  period  of  Israel's  history. 


LECTURE  II 

THE   FORMATION    OF   ISRAEL 
TJic  Origin  of  tJic  Tiuclvc  Tribes 

MOST  closely  connected  with  the  historical  theme 
discussed  in  the  last  lecture  is  the  formation  of 
Israel.  Its  own  conception  of  its  origin  is  expressed 
in  the  legends  in  Genesis,  and  especially  the  legends 
of  the  twelve  tribes  out  of  which  Israel  was  formed. 
It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  Israel  was  a 
birth  of  the  dark  ages  of  antiquity,  that  period  of 
turmoil  and  confnsion  which  resulted  in  the  over- 
throw of  the  previously  existing  civilization  and 
institutions  of  Palestine  and  the  surrounding  coun- 
tries. Israel  was  alien  to  Canaan  and  the  Canaan- 
itcs.  The  consciousness  of  this  fact  breathes  through 
all  its  legends  and  traditions.  Its  fathers  came 
from  the  land  of  the  Aramaeans.  It  was  not  of  the 
same  stock  as  Canaan.  Canaan  was  a  son  of  Ham, 
but  Israel  was  descended  from  Shem.  When  Abra- 
ham would  find  a  wife  for  his  son  Isaac,  he  marries 
him,  not  to  a  daughter  of  the  Canaanites,  nor  does 
he  choose  an  Egyptian  as  Ishmael  had  done,  but  he 
sends  to  take  a  wife  for  him  from  Aram-naharaim, 


46  Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  land  of  the  Aramaeans  in  Mesopotamia.  So, 
also,  Isaac's  favorite  son,  Jacob,  goes  to  Paddan- 
Aram  and  finds  there  a  wife  of  his  own  stock, 
unlike  Edom,  who  intermarries  with  the  daughters 
of  Heth  and  of  Ishmael.  As  these  stories  show, 
Israel  was  conscious  not  merely  of  its  non-Canaan- 
ite  origin,  but  that  its  origin  was  Aramaean,  a  con- 
sciousness which  expressed  itself  further  in  a  ritual 
preserved  to  us  in  the  7th  century  Book  of  Deuter- 
onomy, in  which  the  Israelites,  in  presenting  their 
offering  of  the  first-fruits,  are  instructed  to  say  : 
"  An  Aramaian  ready  to  perish  was  my  father " 
(Deut.  XXVI,  5). 

As  we  shall  see  later,  much  in  the  stories  of 
Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  is  Canaanite  and  belongs 
to  the  old  Canaanite  sanctuaries ;  but  mingled  with 
this  is  a  national  Israelite  element  which  represents 
a  true  racial  tradition.  I  have  already  pointed  out 
that,  at  the  close  of  the  15th  century  B.  C,  an 
Aramaean  wave  of  invasion  was  pressing  northward 
from  Arabia,  just  as  an  Amorite  wave  had  done 
before  and  as  an  Arabian  wave  was  destined  to  do 
later.  It  may  be  of  interest  to  note  that  the  last 
ripple  of  this  Aramaean  wave  of  invasion,  which 
began  in  the  fifteenth  century,  was  the  Nabatseans, 
whom  we  meet  in  northern  Arabia  coming  north- 
ward   in    the    later   Assyrian    inscriptions    of    the 


The    r^ormation    of    Israel      47 

/th  century  !>.  C,  who  were  settled  in  ancient 
Ldom  in  the  fourth  century,  and  who  occupied  the 
whole  region  eastward  from  the  Jordan  to  the 
Euphrates  at  the  commencement  of  our  era. 
Probably  Arabs  in  race,  the  language  of  the  Naba- 
t;eans  was  Aram.ean,  but  so  strongly  tinged  with 
Arabic  as  to  form  a  connecting  link  between  Ara- 
ma:an  and  Arabic,  at  one  end  joining  one,  at  the 
other,  the  other.  These  Nabata^ans  were  the  rear- 
guard of  the  Aramaeans  and  the  vanguard  of  the 
Arabs,  and  their  language  is  almost  transitional 
between  Aramaean  and  Arabic.  Similarly  there 
are  indications  that  those  Aramaean  invaders  of 
whom  the  Hebrews  were  part,  who  began  to  come 
out  of  Arabia  in  the  15th  century  B.  C,  were  tran- 
sitional between  Canaanites  and  Aramzeans,  belong- 
ing to  the  latter  in  race,  akin  in  language  to  the 
former. 

But  while  the  Israelites  were  thus  conscious  of 
their  differentiation  from  the  Canaanites,  the  Amo- 
rites,  Jebusites,  Hivites  and  all  the  other  inhabit- 
ants of  Canaan  who  belonged  to  the  older  occupa- 
tion, they  show  in  their  traditions  consciousness  of 
a  close  connection  with  Moab,  Amnion,  Edom  and 
some  of  the  Bcdawin  peoples  of  the  neighboring 
regions.  Edom  was  the  closest  of  kin  —  Israel's 
own   brother,  and    indeed,    Israel's    elder    brother. 


48  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Edom  was  Esau,  the  elder  son  of  Isaac  ;  Israel  was 
Jacob,  his  younger  son.  The  meaning  of  this 
family  narrative,  as  expressing  the  relationship  of 
the  two  nations,  is  perfectly  plain,  and  it  is  clear, 
also,  that  we  have  here  an  historical  fact  ;  that 
these  two  peoples  were  so  close  of  kin  that  they 
were  in  fact  twin  brothers  ;  that  the  one  who  first 
reached  the  condition  of  settled  nationality  was 
Edom,  to  be  outdone  later  by  the  younger  Israel, 
who  won  the  blessing  of  the  better  land  and  hence 
the  higher  cultur^and  the  greater  strength.  Next 
most  closely  related  to  Israel,  from  our  knowledge 
of  later  conditions,  we  should  expect  to  find  Moab 
and  Ammon,  and  in  point  of  fact  they  are  repre- 
sented as  the  children  of  Lot,  Abraham's  nephew, 
who  was  to  him  like  his  own  younger  brother,  so 
that  Israel  may  be  said  to  be  almost  a  first  cousin 
to  those  two  nations. 

But  closer  of  kin  in  reality  were  the  semi-Bedawin 
tribes  in  the  region  in  which,  according  to  its  tradi- 
tions, Israel  wandered  for  so  many  years,  the  children 
of  Ishmael,  Abraham's  elder  son.  These  Ishmael- 
ite  tribes  were  Israel's  own  kinsfolk,  the  continuing 
occupants  of  the  land  once  common  to  both  ;  con- 
sequently to  Ishmael  the  legend  ascribes  the  senior- 
ity, at  the  same  time  that  it  recognizes  his  infe- 
riority, counting  these  tribes  as  sons  of  Hagar,  the 


The    Formation    of  Israel      49 

concubine,  and  not  of  Sarah,  the  true  wife*  These 
genealogies  agree  with  those  stories  of  Genesis 
which  picture  tlic  original  nomadic  condition  of 
Israel's  ancestors,  and  both  preserve  in  this  regard 
a  true  tradition.  It  may  be  said  in  passing  that  the 
way  in  which  the  ancestors  of  the  Israelites  are  rep- 
resented as  tenting  here  and  there,  wandering  in  and 
out  among  the  settled  peoples  of  Canaan,  dwelling 
in  the  midst  of  them  and  yet  not  of  them,  is  a  sin- 
gularly faithful  picture  of  conditions  which  one  may 
find  in  places  to-day  and  which  have  always  existed 
at  times  in  Palestine.  In  later  Israelite  and  Jewish 
times  we  find  such  conditions  prevailing  ;  and  the 
Tel  el-Amarna  letters  make  it  clear  that  such  con- 
ditions prevailed  in  Palestine  in  the  days  when  the 
Egyptian  power  was  tottering  to  its  fall.  There  is 
a  verisimilitude  about  the  descriptions  of  the  lives 
of  the  patriarchs  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  which  con- 
vinces the  thoughtful  reader  that  the  same  condi- 
tions prevailed  at  the  time  when  these  legends  took 
form,  1 200  or  thereabout  B.  C.     There  is  a  similar 


•  In  the  Priest-Code,  Gen.  XXV,  12-17,  Ishmael  is  made  to  in- 
clude northern  Arabia.  In  a  race  legend  included  in  the  Yahawist, 
Gen.  XXV,  1-4,  Abraham  is  represented  as  father,  by  a  concubine 
named  Keturah,  of  various  Arabian  peoples,  extending  well  into  south- 
ern Arabia.  These  genealogies  testify  to  Israel's  consciousness  of 
a  connection  with  .Arabia,  and  in-so-far  confirm  the  statement  that 
the  ancestors  of  Israel  at  some  period  came  from  that  country. 


50  Early  Hebrew  Story 

verisimilitude  in  the  picture  which  we  have,  partic- 
ularly in  the  story  of  Joseph,  of  the  way  in  which 
nomadic  or  semi-nomadic  inhabitants  of  Palestine 
and  the  neighboring  parts  wandered  into  Egypt  and 
out  of  it  again.  While  we  have  no  Egyptian  in- 
scription which  mentions  the  Israelites  in  this  con- 
nection, there  is  an  inscription  of  King  Merenptah, 
supposed  to  be  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus,  about 
the  middle  of  the  13th  century  B,  C,  which  shows 
that  nomadic  tribes  were  in  his  day  doing  precisely 
what  the  Israelite  stories  say  that  the  ancestors  of 
Israel  did.  The  Shasu  or  Bedawi  tribes  mentioned 
in  this  inscription  belong  to  Aduma,  which  seems  to 
be  Edom ;  and  if  so,  this  is  the  earliest  mention  of 
Edom  which  has  been  found  anywhere  up  to  this 
time.  These  tribes  are  permitted  to  "  pass  the  fort- 
ress of  King  Merenptah  in  Thuku  (Succoth)  to  the 
pools  of  King  Merenptah,  which  are  in  Thuku,  that 
they  may  obtain  food  for  themselves  and  for  their 
cattle  in  the  field  of  the  Pharaoh,  who  is  the  gracious 
sun  in  every  land." 

Another  inscription  of  the  same  king,  discovered 
at  Thebes  in  1896,  contains  the  first  known  mention 
of  the  name  Israel.  , This  inscription  reads  as  fol- 
lows :  "No  one  among  the  Nine  Bows  [the  for- 
eign nations]  raises  his  head.  Tekhony  [the  Liby- 
ans]  are   destroyed ;    Khate    [the  Hittites]  are   at 


The    Formation    of  Israel       5' 

peace  ;  Pa-kan-ana  [Canaan]  is  captive  in  every 
evil  (?).  Ashkelon  is  carried  into  captivity  ;  Gezer 
is  taken  ;  Yenoam  is  annihilated  ;  Israel  is  destroyed, 
its  crops  are  no  more;  Kharu  [Southern  ralestincl 
has  become  like  the  widows  of  Egypt.  All  the  lands 
are  in  peace  together.  Every  robber  has  been  con- 
quered by  King  Mercnptah,  who  like  the  sun  gives 
life  each  day." 

It  must  be  confessed  that  this  inscription  is  very 
perplexing  and  hard  to  bring  into  line  with  our  sup- 
posed knowledge  from  other  sources  with  regard  to 
Israel.  Israel  is  here  mentioned  along  with  peoples 
and  nations  of  southern  Palestine,  as  though  already 
settled  in  that  country.  From  all  other  indications, 
it  would  appear  that  Israel  was  as  yet  in  an  unor- 
ganized, nomadic  condition.  We  may,  perhaps,  in- 
fer that  some  of  the  separate  elements  which  we 
know  later  in  their  combined  form  as  Israel  were 
already  at  this  time  known  by  that  name,  and  pos- 
sibly, also,  that  these  Israelites  did  not  go  down  into 
Egypt  with  their  kinsmen.  It  may  be  that  the 
story  of  the  sojourn  at  Kadesh  (Num.  XX)  should 
be  connected  with  this  inscription,  and  interpreted 
as  indicating  a  longer  residence  in  that  region  of 
Israel,  or  some  of  its  elements,  than  has  been  hith- 
erto supposed. 

Jacob  would  seem,  from  the  inscriptions  of  Tho- 


52  Early  Hebrew  Story 

thmes  or  Thutmosis  III.,  to  have  been  in  existence 
at  a  still  earlier  period.  Thutmosis's  reign  com- 
mences in  the  beginning  of  the  15th  century  B.  C. 
He  was  the  greatest  warrior  and  the  most  successful 
conqueror  Egypt  ever  knew.  At  the  beginning  of 
his  reign  the  kings  of  northern  Palestine  and  Syria 
formed  a  federation,  under  the  king  of  Kadesh,  a 
city  on  the  Orontes,  to  throw  off  the  Egyptian 
yoke.  The  decisive  battle  was  fought  at  Megiddo 
on  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  where  three  or  four  cen- 
turies later  the  Israelites  fought  a  decisive  battle  with 
the  Canaanite  kings  for  the  possession  of  northern 
Palestine.  The  list  of  peoples  in  Thutmosis's  in- 
scription recording  that  victory  contains  the  names 
of  many  towns  familiar  in  later  Israelite  history  : — 
Merom,  Laish,  Shumem,  Ta'anach,  Ibleam,  Joppa, 
Gath,  Ekron,  Gezer,  Bethel,  Beth  Anoth, — and 
indeed,  as  pointed  out  in  the  last  lecture,  we  now 
know,  from  various  Egyptian  inscriptions,  that  most 
of  the  cities  which  later  play  a  part  in  the  Bible 
narrative,  including  Jerusalem  itself,  were  in  exis- 
tence long  before  the  time  when  the  Hebrews  occu- 
pied the  land  and  were,  therefore,  evidently  taken 
over  by  the  Hebrews,  names  and  all,  from  the  ear- 
lier Canaanite  inhabitants. 

Among  these  names  in   the  lists   of    Thutmosis 
appear  two,  familiar  to  us  in   Hebrew  tradition  as 


The    r\)rmation    of  Israel      53 

names  of  persons,  Joscph-cl  and  Jacob-cl.  I  have 
already  pointed  out  in  the  former  lecture  that 
Joseph-el  and  Jacob-el  are  the  same  as  our  Joseph 
and  Jacob,  except  that  in  the  latter  the  divine  affix, 
r/,  is  omitted,  and  also  that  we  find  precisely  these 
same  names  as  personal  names  in  Babylonia  as  early 
as  2250  B.  C.  From  the  analogy  of  other  names  in 
Hebrew  we  have  every  reason  to  suppose  that  Jacob 
and  Joseph  were  abbreviated  ;  that  originally  they 
had  the  divine  affix,  ^7,  itself  a  regular  component 
part  of  names  of  this  description.  We  know,  also, 
from  later  history,  that  in  actual  use  such  divine  pre- 
fixes or  suf^xes  were  sometimes  omitted,  although 
parts  of  the  full  name.  We  may  regard  it,  I  think,  as 
fairly  established  that  Jacob  and  Joseph  represent 
an  original  Jacob-el  and  Joseph-el,  and  the  discovery 
of  these  names  in  Palestine  indicating  a  certain 
territory  and  collectively  the  inhabitants  of  that 
territory,  suggests  to  us  a  connection  of  the  names 
Joseph  and  Jacob  in  the  Bible  story  with  these 
names  found  in  the  Egyptian  inscriptions  at  a  period 
considerably  antedating  the  Hebrew  invasion.  It 
would  seem  from  the  connection  that  in  the  Egypt- 
ian inscriptions  these  names  apply  to  that  section 
of  territory  later  occupied  by  the  Israelites  more 
narrowly  so  called,  and  by  those  tribes  known  as 
the  sons  of  Joseph.     We  have  here,  presumably,  the 


54  Early  Hebrew  Story 

same  phenomenon  which  we  have  in  the  case  of 
Moab  and  Ammon,  the  children  of  Lot.  Moab  and 
Ammon,  coming  into  the  territory  theretofore 
known  as  Lotan,  and  taking  possession  of  the  same, 
adopted  the  traditions  of  that  country  and,  after,  a 
process  familiar  the  world  over,  became  the  children 
of  the  land,  that  is,  children  of  Lot.  So  we  may 
suggest  that  the  Israelites,  occupying  at  a  later 
date  the  land  of  Jacob,  became,  by  virtue  of  that 
fact,  the  children  of  Jacob,  who  in  their  legends 
becomes  their  progenitor  and  is  finally  identified 
with  Israel.  Similarly  the  tribes  of  Ephraim  and 
Manasseh  became  the  children  of  Joseph. 

Another  curious  fact  with  regard  to  the  names 
and  early  inhabitants  of  Palestine  and  the  later 
connection  of  these  same  names  with  the  Israelites,- 
we  learn  also  from  the  Egyptian  inscriptions.  The 
Hitlffes  are  first  mentioned  in  the  Egyptian  monu- 
ments about  1470  B.  C,  as  paying  tribute  to  the 
Egyptian  king,  Thutmosis  III.  Their  land  is  there 
described  as  "  the  greater  Hittite  land,"  and  lay, 
evidently,  to  the  north  of  Syria.  From  other 
sources  it  would  appear  that  their  home  was  Asia 
Minor,  and  perhaps  that  the  center  of  their  do- 
minion was  Cappadocia.  Under  succeeding  Egypt- 
ian reigns  they  pressed  further  southward,  and 
ultimately,  in   the    days  of  the    i8th  dynasty,    in 


The    Formation    ot    Israel      55 

the  times  of  Scti  I.  and  the  Ramses,  appear  as  a 
great  power,  struggling  with  Egypt  for  the  posses- 
sion of  Syria  and  Palestine.  In  the  records  of  Scti 
I.  and  Ramses  II.  of  their  expeditions  into  Palestine 
and  Syria  and  their  contests  with  the  Hittites,  we 
find  mention  of  a  once  somewhat  important  state 
called  Aseru,  or  Asarii,  occupying  apparently  the 
western  part  of  Galilee,  precisely  the  region  occupied 
later  by  the  Israelite  tribe  of  Asher,  a  name 
which  is  linguistically  identical  with  the  Aseru  or 
Asaru  of  the  Egyptian  inscriptions.  Had  this  Aseru 
or  Asaru  anything  to  do  with  Asher,  which  was  one 
of  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel  ?  I  think  that  it  was 
identical  with  it,  and  that  the  fact  is  thus  brought 
out  that  Asher  was  originally  a  Canaanite  people, 
occupying  the  land  before  the  time  of  the  incoming 
of  Israel.  We  have  in  that  event  an  explanation  \ 
of  the  fact  that  the  mother  of  Asher  was  called  in 
Hebrew  story  a  concubine,  the  hand-maid  or  slave 
of  Leah,  and  not  the  wife  of  Jacob. 

Israel  was,  like  the  Edomites,  the  Ishmaelites, 
and  other  kindred  peoples,  theoretically  divided 
into  twelve  tribes.  It  is  sometimes  supposed  that 
this  twelve-fold  division,  a  number  corresponding 
to  the  number  of  the  months  of  the  year,  was  con- 
nected with  a  primal  lunar  worship.  I  would  sug- 
gest the  possiblity  of  another,  perhaps  more  simple 


5^  Early    Hebrew   Story- 

explanation.  In  Hebrew  laws  we  have  a  tendency 
toward  a  tenfold  division.  The  early  laws  are,  as  a 
rule,  cast  in  the  form  of  decalogues,  which  again 
divide  into  pentads.  That  is,  normally  the  early 
laws  are  cast  in  double  sections  of  five  laws  in  each 
half  section.  This  is  a  method  of  division  not 
peculiar  to  the  Hebrew.  It  depends  upon  the 
simple  and  natural  system  of  counting,  based  upon 
the  constitution  of  the  body,  which  has  influenced 
numeral  systems  the  world  over,  and  in  fact  given 
us  our  decimal  system.  People  counted  on  the 
fingers — five  fingers  on  the  one  hand  and  five  fingers 
on  the  other  hand,  the  two  together,  ten.  This  is  of 
a  piece  with  the  whole  primitive  method  of  measur- 
ing nature.  Similarly  for  length-measures  men  used 
fingers  and  ells  and  feet.  For  its  numerical  con- 
venience this  finger-counting  was  very  commonly 
adopted  in  the  arrangement  and  codification  of 
early  legislat'ion. 

But  we  find  also  a  second  primitive  numerical 
system  which,  I  fancy,  is  based  in  the  same  way, 
although  not  quite  so  obviously,  on  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  parts  of  the  human  body, — the  duo- 
decimal system,  which  has  come  down  to  us  through 
our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors  and  was  in  primitive 
times  a  rival  of  the  decimal  system.  This  system 
does  not  owe  its  origin  to  the  twelve  lunar  months. 


The  Formation  ot  Israel        57 

but  simply  to  another  method  of  counting  the 
fingers,  which  was  an  advance  on  the  decimal  sys- 
tem in  that  it  gave  a  higher  count,  the  method, 
namely,  of  counting  the  closed  hand  or  fist  in  ad- 
dition to  counting  the  fingers  of  the  hand.  This 
system  is  singularly  combined  with  the  decimal 
system  in  the  Assyrian-Babylonian  numeration, 
where  the  units  are  6,  60,  600,  etc.,  the  basal  unit 
reckoned  on  the  duodecimal  system,  the  secondary 
units  obtained  by  multiplication  of  this  basal  unit, 
not  by  six  or  twelve,  but  by  ten.  It  would  seem 
from  this  that  both  systems  of  counting,  the  deci- 
mal and  the  duodecimal,  were,  to  some  extent,  in 
use  and  known  in  Babylonia,  possibly,  also,  among 
the  Hebrews  and  their  kinsfolk.  If  so,  the  ten- 
dency to  reckon  the  component  parts  of  the  nation 
by  twelve,  not  by  ten,  which  we  find  among  these 
peoples,  may  be  due,  not  to  the  influence  of  lunar 
worship,  but  merely  to  a  method  of  numerical  cal- 
culation. 

But  whatever  the  origin  of  this  twelve-fold  divis- 
ion, we  find  the  tendency  among  these  kindred 
peoples  to  count  twelve  parts  or  tribes.  The  com- 
plete people  was  made  up  of  twelve  parts.  So  far 
as  Israel  was  concerned,  and  probably,  also,  so  far 
as  some,  if  not  all  of  the  neighboring  peoples  who 
used  the  same  system  were  concerned,  this  twelve- 


58  Early  Hebrew  Story 

fold  division  was,  at  least  in  the  historical  period, 
theory  rather  than  practice.  You  can  make  twelve 
tribes  in  Israel  at  any  known  period  only  by  artifi- 
cial calculation.  Either,  for  instance,  you  must 
make  a  tribe  of  Joseph,  as  is  done  in  the  account  of 
the  conquest  in  the  Yahawistic  narrative  (Josh. 
XVI,  i),  which  was  never  a  tribe  in  the  historical 
period  from  David  onward  ;  or,  if  you  count  as  two 
Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  who  were  actually  tribes, 
you  must  drop  Levi,  the  priestly  tribe,  from  the 
reckoning.  The  song  of  Deborah  (Judges  V), 
which  was  practically  contemporary  with  the  events 
narrated  in  it,  and  is  to  be  dated,  therefore,  not  later 
certainly,  than  the  nth  century  B.C.,  mentions 
only  ten  tribes.  In  that  document  Ephraim,  as  the 
leading  tribe,  is  named  first,  followed  by  the  other 
Rachelite  tribes,  Benjamin  and  Machir,  which  is, 
properly  speaking,  Manasseh  east  of  the  Jordan, 
although  here  it  may  be  used  poetically  of  Manas- 
seh in  general.  Then  follow  Zebulun,  Issachar  and 
Reuben,  Leah  tribes,  and  then  Gilead,  which  may  be 
Gad,  Dan,  Asher  and  Naphtali.  Three  of  the  Leah 
tribes,  Judah,  Simeon  and  Levi,  are  omitted  alto- 
gether, and  in  fact  at  that  time  Simeon  and  Levi 
were  already  extinct  as  tribes,  or  practically  so.  But 
while  at  any  given  period  of  Israel's  history  there 
were  not  twelve  tribes  in  existence,  nevertheless  the 


The  Formation  of  Israel        59 

theory  of  the  twelve-fold  division,  derived,  perhaps, 
from  prehistoric  conditions,  was  constantly  main- 
tained and  preserved  in  the  memory  and  belief  of 
the  people  by  the  story  of  the  twelve  brothers,  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  who  is  Jacob. 

That  such  genealogical  relations,  those  of  the 
twelve  brethren  to  Jacob,  of  Israel  and  Edom  to 
Isaac,  of  Isaac,  Ishmael,  Dedan,  Teima,  Saba  and 
the  rest  to  Abraham,  and  the  other  numerous  gene- 
alogies which  we  find  in  Israelite  tradition,  are  not 
to  be  taken  in  any  literal  sense  as  indicating  per- 
sonal relations  will  be  clear,  I  think,  to  any  student 
of  the  Bible  who  will  observe  the  method  in  which 
the  Bible  narrative  over  and  over  again  counts  the 
individuals  mentioned  in  these  various  genealogies 
as  nations,  sometimes  in  so  many  words  saying  this 
is  such  and  such  a  people,  sometimes  mentioning 
facts  which  by  no  possible  stretch  of  the  imagina- 
tion can  be  parts  of  personal  history,  but  are  descrip- 
tions of  the  conditions  of  a  tribe  or  nation.  The 
same  use  is  found  almost  everywhere  in  the 
compilation  of  early  traditions  of  the  history  and  deri- 
vation of  nations  and  tribes.  Most  strikingly  par- 
allel to  the  Hebrew  in  this  regard  is  the  Arabic  use. 
In  Arabia  we  find  precisely  the  same  combination  of 
the  histor}'  of  the  tribe  or  people,  told  in  the  shape 
of  genealogy,  and  personal  stories  about   the  tribal 


6o  Early  Hebrew  Story 

ancestors,  who,  nevertheless,  are  not  persons,  which 
we  have  in  the  Israelite  narrative.  Given  this 
conception  of  the  relation  of  tribes  and  peoples 
to  one  another  expressed  in  terms  of  family  rela- 
tionship, which  shows  itself  in  its  dryest  and  plain- 
est form  in  the  geographical  table  of  the  tenth  chap- 
ter of  Genesis  and  in  the  genealogies  of  the  Priest- 
Code  in  the  early  chapters  of  the  same  book,  it 
was  inevitable  that  local  and  national  story-tellers 
should  weave  stories  about  these  tribal  names  in 
which  would  be  intermingled  actual  historical  remi- 
niscences and  personal  and  individual  traits.  This 
has  actually  occurred  in  Hebrew  story,  and  legend 
has  thus  given  a  personal  character  to  ancestors 
who,  after  all,  are  nothing  but  tribal  personi- 
fications or  characterizations.  In  this  genealogical 
system  the  relationships  of  peoples  and  places  are 
expressed  naturally  in  terms  of  the  relationships 
between  individuals.  Nations  are  fathers  and  grand- 
fathers, sons  and  grandisoris,  brothers,  sisters  and 
wives  of  one  another,  or  stand  in  the  same  relation 
to  the  territories  which  they  invade  or  possess.  I 
have  suggested  applications  of  this  latter  principle 
in  the  relationship  of  Moab  and  Ammon  to  Lot  and 
Ephraim  and  Manasseh  to  Joseph.  Occasionally 
we  have  identifications — the  incoming  people  iden- 
tifying itself  with  the  parentage  and  tradition  of  the 


The  r'ormation  of  Israel        ^^ 

people   it  has   dispossessed,  and   tlius   claiming   for 
itself  two  names  as  the  names  of  its  ancestors.     Of 
liiis  we   have   an  example   in   Israel  and  Jacob  and 
perhaps,  also,  in  the  double  name  Esau  and  Edom    • 
for  the  same  people. 

In  Hebrew  story  Jacob  is  described  as  the  father 
of  twelve  sons  by  two  wives  and  two  concubines,  a 
distinction    which    suggests    at    once    a    difference 
between    the   eight   children  of   the   wives  and   the 
four  children  of    the  concubines.       What  was  the 
difference  between  the  tribes  in   their  origin  which 
suggested  this  distinction  ?     How  was  it  that  four 
were  recognized  as  less  legitimately  the  children  of   - 
Jacob  than  the  other  eight  ?     Of  the  eight  children    . 
by  his  two  wives  the  six  elder  are  the  children  of 
one  wife,  Leah,  the  one  whom  he  loved  less  ;  the  " 
two  younger,  only,  are  children  of  the  wife  of  his  . 
heart.     It    will    be   noticed,   further,   that    his    two 
wives  were  both  of  them  of  Arama.'an  origin,  children  . 
of  Laban,  emphasizing  what  I   have  already  called 
attention  to — the  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the 
Hebrews  of  their  kinship  with   and  in  fact  descent 
from     the     Aramaeans,    from    whom,    in    historical 
times,  as  we  know  them,  they  were  differentiated 
by  language,  whereas  they  spoke  the  same  tongue 
as  the  Canaanites,  to  whom  they  yet  counted  them- 
selves alien.     Again  the  kinship   indicated  in  these 


62  Early  Hebrew  Story 

traditions  does  not  correspond  with  the  geographical 
distribution  of  the  tribes  of  Israel  as  we  know  it 
historically,  an  evidence  that  it  comes  down  to  us 
from  a  pre-historic  period.  So,  also,  it  is  not  the  old- 
est son,  Reuben,  to  whom  the  leadership  and 
hegemony  belongs  in  the  earliest  historical  times  of 
which  we  have  knowledge,  as  we  should  expect 
genealogically,  but  one  of  the  youngest  sons,  Joseph. 
Clearly,  at  the  time  when  these  genealogies  took. 
shape,  Israel  was  conscious  of  a  period  when 
Reuben  had  been  the  leading  tribe,  a  period  which, 
even  in  the  time  of  the  Judges,  had  already  long 
since  passed  away.  Traces  of  this  former  leader- 
ship are  found  in  the  Elohistic  form  of  the  Joseph 
story,  where  Reuben  takes  the  lead,  and  in  the 
story  of  Reuben's  rebellion  in  Numbers  XVI.  But 
in  the  time  of  the  Judges  Joseph  was  the  dominant 
element,  which  is  accounted  for  in  tradition  by  the 
story,  according  to  which,  although  a  younger  son: 
he  was  yet  the  son  of  the  favored  wife.  Of  all  the 
sons  of  Jacob,  it  is  Joseph  about  whom  we  have 
the  fullest  story,  including  a  peculiar  connec- 
tion with  Eg}^pt.  Clearly  these  legends  took  shape 
V  after  Reuben  had  ceased  to  be  the  leader  and  before 
the  time  of  the  hegemony  of  Ju.'ah  under  David 
and  Solomon,  at  a  period  when  the  tribe  of  Joseph 
was  predominant. 


The    L'ormation    of    Israel       ^3 

I  might  mention  other  details  which  give  us  simi- 
lar glimpses  into  the  history  of  the  past  in  the  form 
of  genealogies.  IManasseh  was  older  than  Ephraim,^ 
but  it  was  Ephraim,  not  Manasseh,  who  received  the 
blessing  of  his  father,  which  gave  him  the  rights  of 
M-imogeniture.  It  is,  in  another  form,  the  same  story 
which  is  told  in  regard  to  the  relationship  of  Esau 
and  Jacob.  The  legend  indicates  an  earlier  priority 
of  some  sort,  obtained  by  Manasseh,  which,  in  fact, 
seems  to  have  been  achieved  by  the  location  of 
Manasseh  east  of  the  Jordan,  before  either  of  the 
Joseph  tribes  found  a  foothold  in  the  west. 

And  now  let  us  take  up  these  tribes  somewhat 
more  systematicall)'  :  We  have,  as  sons  of  Leah, 
Reuben,  Simeon,  Levi,  Judah,  Lssachar  and  Zcbulun, 
six  in  all,  together  with  a  daughter,  Dinah.  Con- 
nected  with  these,  as  sons  of  Leah's  handmaid, 
Zilpah,  are  Gad  and  Asher.  Rachel,  the  second 
wife  of  Jacob,  had  at  first  no  children.  She,  there- 
fore, gave  to  Jacob  her  handmaid,  Bilhah,  by 
whom  he  had  two  sons,  Dan  and  Naphtali.  Later 
Rachel  gave  birth  to  Joseph  and  finally,  in  Pales- 
tine, she  was  delivered  of  a  son,  Benjamin,  at  whose 
birth  she  died  ;  and  from  an  early  time  the  tomb  of 
Rachel  has  been,  as  it  is  to-day,  a  sacred  place  of 
[)ilgrimage  between  Jerusalem  and  Bethlehem. 

The  first  four  of  the  sons  of  Leah,  Reuben,  Simeon, 


64  Early    Hebrew   Story 

Levi  and  Judah,  constitute,  according  to  the  story 
in  Genesis  XXIX  and  XXX,  a  group  within  a 
group.  After  these  were  born  Leah  ceased  bearing. 
Then  were  born  the  two  children  of  Rachel's  hand- 
maid, Bilhah,  Dan  and  Naphtali,  then  the  two  chil- 
dren of  Leah's  handmaid,  Zilpah,  Gad  and  Asher, 
It  was  only  after  the  birth  of  these  intervening  four 
children  of  the  concubines  that  the  two  remaining 
children  of  Leah,  Issachar  and  Zebulun,  were  born. 
In  historical  times,  Reuben,  Simeon  and  Judah  are 
settled  in  the  extreme  south,  while  Issachar  and 
Zebulun  are  in  the  north.  ^  Was  it  this  geographical 
distribution  which  gave  rise  to  the  division  of  the 
children  of  Leah  into  two  groups,  an  older  one  of 
four,  a  younger  one  of  two  children  ?  You  Avill  ob- 
serve that  the  oldest  children  are  in  the  south,  the 
region  from  which  Israel  came  into  the  land,  the 
youngest  in  the  north.  Reuben,  the  first-born,  the 
oldest  of  all,  occupies  that  territory  which,  according 
to  Hebrew  story,  was  first  subdued  and  occupied  by 
the  tribes  of  Israel  in  their  migration  into  Canaan. 
Reuben  represents,  therefore,  the  oldest  settlement 
of  Israel  on  its  way  into  Canaan.  Judah,  as  we 
know  it  historically,  is  a  very  mixed  tribe,  contain- 
ing Calebite  *  and  other  non-Israelitic  elements.    In 


*  Caleb,  the  dog  or  dog  tribe,  to  whom  belonged  Hebron,  was  a 
Kenizzite  (Josh.  XIV,  13,  14),  as  was  his  brother  Othniel  to  whom 


The    Formation    ol    Israel      ^5 

the  Song  of  Deborah,  as  already  noticed,  the  name 
of  Judah  does  not  appear,  and  it  has  accordingly 
been  suggested  that  Judah  did  not  in  fact  exist  at 
that  time  as  a  part  of  Israel,  and  tliat  it  was  not 
considered  a  part  of  the  twelve  tribes  until  the  time 
of  David.  —I  do  not  think  that  the  facts  warrant 
such  a  conclusion,  nor  even  the  conclusion  that 
Judah  represents  altogether  a  migration  of  Israel 
from  the  Amalckite  region  southward  up  through 
the  Nejeb.  At  the  time  of  Deborah,  Judah  was 
separated  from  the  tribes  northward  by  the  Canaan- 
ite  enclave  in  which  lay  Jerusalem,  which  would 
account  for  the  fact  that  after  the  conquest  Judah 
played  no  part  in  the  history  of  Israel  at  large  until 
the  time  of  David.  On  the  other  hand  the  story, 
in  the  Book  of  Samuel,  of  Saul  and  David  would 
seem  to  show  that  before  that  period,  in  Saul's 
time  and  earlier,  Judah  recognized  its  relation- 
ship with  Israel,  and  also  that  this  relationship  was 
ecjually  recognized  by  Israel.  I  see  no  reason  why 
the  account  in  the  first  chapter  of  Judges  of  the 
conquest  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  which,  in  other   re- 


belonged  Kiriath-Sepher  (Josh.  XV,  17),  a  name  which  we  find  also 
among  the  tribes  of  Edom  (Gen.  XXVI,  42).  As  late  as  David's 
time  Caleb  seems  to  be  regarded  as  distinct  from  Judah  (1  Sam. 
.\XV,  3;  XX.X,  4).  In  the  later  Priest-Code  and  Chronicler  he 
becomes  a  clan  of  Judah,  descended  from  the  patriarch  of  that  name. 


66  Early  Hebrew  Story 

spects,  seems  historically  reliable,  should  not  be 
followed  in  this  particular  also,  and  why  we  should 
not  suppose  that  the  original  tribe  of  Judah  actually 
came  in  from  the  east  of  the  Jordan  but  was  after- 
wards very  much  enlarged  by,  and,  indeed,  received 
its  importance  from  the  addition  of  other  elements 
connected  with  the  region  southward,  like  the 
Calebites. 

In  historical  times  Simeon  is  closely  connected 
with  Judah,  and,  so  far  as  it  has  an  independent 
existence,  seems  to  constitute  a  fringe  on  the  edge 
of  Judah  toward  the  Bedawin  desert  population 
(Judges  I,  17).  When  we  turn  to  the  so-called 
Blessings  of  Jacob,  in  Genesis  XLIX,  which  are  a 
characterization  of  the  conditions  of  Israel,  mak- 
ing use  of  older  tribal  verses  or  couplets,  in  the 
period  shortly  after  the  division  of  the  kingdom,  if 
my  conclusions  are  correct,  Simeon  and  Levi  are 
classed  together  as  brethren,  distinguished  for  their 
cruelty,  who  have  been  guilty  of  some  outrage  so 
indefensible  that  they  are  divided  in  Jacob  and  scat- 
tered in  Israel.  Here  Levi  is  treated  as  a  tribe, 
like  the  other  tribes,  but  apparently  both  it  and 
Simeon  had  been  blotted  out  of  existence,  or  almost 
blotted  out  of  existence. 

In  the  somewhat  similar  but  later  characteriza- 
tion of   the  tribes  called  the  Blessing  of  Moses,  to 


ilic    Formation    of    Isnicl       ^^7 

be  fouml  in  the  thirty-third  chapter  of  Deuter- 
onomy, Simeon  has  evidently  passed  out  of  exist- 
ence for  all  intents  and  purposes,  but  Levi  appears 
as  the  priest  tribe.*  Now  there  is  a  story  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis  (XXXIV),  in  which  both  Simeon 
and  Levi  play  a  part,  as  also  their  sister,  Dinah, 
who  elsewhere  plays  no  part  whatsoever  in  the 
story  of  Israel.  According  to  this  story,  Dinah 
was  violated  by  Prince  Shechem,  the  son  of  Hamor. 
In  revenge  for  this  her  brothers,  Simeon  and  Levi, 
b)'  stratagem,  succeeded  in  murdering  Ilamor  and 
Shechem,  his  son,  and  spoiling  their  city,  where- 
upon Jacob,  their  father,  says  to  Simeon  and  Levi ; 


*  Tliesc  tribal  blessings  or  characterizations  arc  evidently  an  old 
and  favorite  type  in  Israelite  folklore.  Wc  have  at  least  three  distinct 
collections  of  tribal  sayings  or  couplets  preserved  :  Gen.  XXIX  and 
XXX,  Gen,  XLIX,  Deut.  XXXIII.  In  Gen.  XLIX,  and  Deut. 
XXXIII,  old  couplets  are  utilized,  adapted  and  changed  to  make 
longer  poems  and  songs.  Each  of  these  poems  is  in  a  way  an  epi- 
tome, idealized,  of  course,  and  colored  to  some  extent  according  to 
the  subjectivity  of  the  poet,  of  the  nation,  on  the  scheme  of  its 
twelve-fold  tribal  division,  and  has,  therefore,  considerable  historical 
value.  The  Blessings  of  Jacob,  Gen.  XLIX,  dates,  I  presume,  from 
the  Qth  century,  the  Blessings  of  Moses  from  about  the  middle  of  the 
8th  century  B.  C.  In  the  first  part  of  the  latter  there  seems  to  be 
some  confusion  of  text,  which  affects  the  Blessings  of  Judah,  Simeon 
and  Levi  As  the  play  on  words  shows,  Simeon  should  be  substi- 
tuted for  Judah  in  verse  7.  The  last  half  of  that  verse,  with  verse  11, 
belongs  to  Judah  ,  and  verses  8 — 10  to  Levi. 


6S  Early  Hebrew  Story 

"Ye  have  troubled  me  to  make  me  stink  among  the 
inhabitants  of  the  land :  and  I  being  few  in  num- 
ber, they  shall  gather  themselves  together  against 
me,  and  slay  me ;  and  I  shall  be  destroyed,  I  and 
my  house"  (Gen.  XXXIV,  30).  Of  course,  the 
prince  Shechem  here  mentioned  is  the  city  of 
Shechem,  and  what  we  are  dealing  with  is  prima- 
rily a  narrative  of  tribes  and  peoples.  It  has  often 
been  suggested  that  this  narrative  recounts  the 
same  thing  which  is  referred  to  in  the  passage  of 
the  Blessings  of  Jacob,  Gen.  XLIX,  4-7,  cited 
above,  and  that  we  have  here  in  fact,  told  in  the 
form  of  a  story,  reminiscences  of  an  actual  histori- 
cal occurrence — the  attempt  of  Simeon  and  Levi  to 
secure  a  settlement  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  which 
attempt  was  so  conducted  as  to  result  in  catastro- 
phe to  those  tribes,  which  were  in  consequence 
scattered  in  Israel  and  practically  blotted  out  of 
existence.  Geographically,  we  should  have  sup- 
posed that  an  entrance  into  Canaan  would  have 
been  made  at  just  this  point  by  any  peoples  advanc- 
ing from  the  east  of  the  Jordan.  As  one  sits  on  top 
of  Mt.  Osha  in  Gilead  to-day  and  looks  down  upon 
all  Palestine,  for  all  Palestine  is  visible  from  this 
point,  and  from  this  point  only,  the  Samarian  hills 
lie  directly  opposite,  across  the  Jordan,  and  through 
the  shoulder  of  the  mountains   in  which  Shechem 


The    Formation    of    Israel      ^9 

(shoulder)  lies,  one  sees  as  far  as  to  the  Medi- 
terranean  Sea  beyond.  A  road  is  visible  descend- 
ing- from  Shechem  in  the  Samarian  hills  to  the 
Jordan  valley,  which,  crossing  the  Jordan,  leads  up 
to  es-Salt  in  Gilead.     This  road  is  clearly  a  much 

4 

easier  way  of  entering  the  hill  country  across  the 
Jordan  than  anything  further  southward;  indeed, 
it  seems  to  the  observer  on  the  opposite  hills  of 
Gilead  the  natural  way  to  enter  that  country-.  This 
natural  connection  between  these  two  parts  of  the 
country,  Gilead  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan,  Samaria 
on  the  west,  is  rendered  evident,  moreover,  in  the 
Turkish  administrative  division  of  modern  times, 
wheie  the  central  territory  east  of  the  Jordan  is 
governed  from  Nablus,  ancient  Shechem,  not  from 
Jerusalem.  It  will  be  remembered,  also,  that  in 
the  historic  times  of  Israel,  after  the  division  of  the 
kingdom,  the  land  east  of  the  Jordan,  including  the 
territory  of  Moab  to  the  southward,  belonged  or 
was  tributary  to  Samaria,  and  not  to  Jerusalem. 
It  is  really  easier  for  a  person  east  of  the  Jordan  to 
cross  over  and  go  up  to  Shechem  than  to  Jerusa- 
lem, or  at  least  it  would  be  if  the  roads  in  both 
cases  were  equally  well  attended  to.  At  the  present 
moment  the  presence  of  a  good  carriage  road  from 
Jerusalem  to  Jericho  and  a  bridge  across  the  Jordan 
at  that  point,  makes  some  difTerencc  in  this  particu- 


70  Early    Hebrew   Story 

lar.  At  the  same  time  anyone  traveling  along  the 
mountains  to  the  west  of  the  Jordan  becomes  con- 
scious of  the  fact  that  there  are  by  nature  many 
more  and  easier  roads  leading  up  from  the  Jordan 
valley  to  the  country  afterwards  occupied  by  Sa- 
maria, than  to  Jerusalem  and  Judaea. 

In  historical  times  we  find  two  sons  of  Leah,  those 
/  which  were  represented  as  younger  sons,  born  after 
the  others,  occupying  the  edge  of  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon  and  the  central  section  of  Galilee,  and 
these  Leah  tribes  in  the  north  are  separated  from 
the  Leah  tribes  in  the  south  by  the  whole  mass  of 
the  later  born  Rachel  tribes.  If  we  understand  the 
story  of  the  thirty-fourth  chapter  of  Genesis,  in  con- 
nection with  the  allusion  in  the  Blessings  of  Jacob 
already  referred  to,  as  retaining  the  tradition  of  an 
attempted  settlement  by  Simeon  and  Levi  in  the 
center  of  the  land,  which  attempted  settlement 
failed,  we  shall  have  at  once  an  explanation  of  this 
division.  The  Leah  tribes  would  then,  first  of  all, 
moving  up  from  the  south,  have  occupied  the  terri- 
tory east  of  the  Jordan.  That  was  their  oldest  set- 
tlement, as  represented  in  the  story  which  made- 
Reuben,  the  most  southerly  tribe  east  of  Jordan,  the 
oldest  son.  Moving  across  the  Jordan,  they  entered. 
Canaan  proper  at  three  points — first  at  a  central 
point  opposite  Shechem,  where  the  two    next  eld- 


The    Fonnalioii    ot    Israel       7' 

est  sons,  Simeon  and  Levi,  attempted  to  make  a 
settlement;  secondly  at  a  lower  point,  just  at  the 
head  of  the  Dead  Sea,  which  brought  them  into  the 
country  south  of  Jerusalem,  \s'hcrc  Judah,  tlic 
youngest  son  of  the  first  set,  made  his  settlement. 
The  latest  and  youngest  invasion  was  that  from  the 
more  northern  part  of  the  east  Jordan  land,  through 
the  great  and  fertile  Esdraelon  plain,  by  the  tribes 
of  Issacharand  Zebulun,  which  resulted  in  the  occu- 
pation of  central  Galilee.  At  the  outset,  as  is  stated 
in  the  early  Yahawistic  account  of  the  conquest  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Judges,  and  in  Joshua  XVII, 
14-18,  the  Israelites  were  unable  to  take  the  rich 
and  strong  Canaanite  cities  on  the  plains,  or  to  cope 
with  the  Canaanites  in  the  well-settled,  city-studded 
lowlands.  So  the  Canaanites  maintained  themselves  ■ 
to  a  late  date,  both  in  the  important  cities  of  the 
plain  of  Esdraelon,  Beth-shean,  Ta'anach,  Megiddo 
and  Ibleam,  and  also  in  the  rich  country  about 
Shechem,  that  central  part  of  the  land  which,  both 
in  the  Blessings  of  Jacob  and  the  Blessings  of 
Moses,  is  represented  as  the  most  fertile  and  beau-^ 
tiful  part  of  the  land  of  Israel.  If  you  will  turn  to 
those  blessings  you  will  find  with  what  sympathetic 
appreciation  the  poet  dwells  on  the  natural  wealth 
of  this  delightful  region,  and  even  to-day  the  trav- 
eler cannot  but  be  impressed  with  its  charm,  in  con- 


72  Early  Hebrew  Story 

trast  with  almost  any  other  section  of  Palestine. 
This  is  the  country  which  Simeon  and  Levi  failed 
to  conquer,  but  which  was  occupied  later  by  the 
tribes  of  Ephraim  and  Manasseh. 

These  tribes,  Joseph,  are,  according  to  the  old 
folklore  stories  of  Genesis,  younger  than  the  sons  of 
Leah,  the  tribes  of  Israel  who  first  settled  in  Canaan  ; 
moreover  Joseph  was  Israel's  favorite  son.  In  fact 
Joseph,  in  the  shape  of  Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  was 
the  most  favored  of  all  the  sons  in  the  land  he  oc- 
cupied, and  in  consequent  wealth  and  prosperity. 
In  fact,  also,  the  sons  of  Rachel  did  enter  Canaan 
later  than  the  sons  of  Leah.  They  represent  a  sec- 
ond wave  of  invasion,  which  crossed  the  Jordan  at 
Jericho,  took  that  city,  moved  up  by  a  natural  road 
to  Ai  and  Bethel,  and,  having  established  themselves 
in  that  region,  pressed  gradually  northward  as  far  as 
the  edge  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  That  their  con- 
quest of  the  richer  country  about  Shechem,  Do- 
than,  and  the  like,  was  slow  is  plain  from  the  passage 
from  Joshua  cited  above.  The  story  of  Abimelech, 
son  of  Gideon-Jerubbaal,  in  the  Book  of  Judges, 
seems  to  show  that  even  at  that  comparatively 
late  date  Shechem  was  still  in  the  hands  of  the 
Canaanites. 

Of  the  two  tribes  which  occupied  the  land  of  Jo- 
seph and  thus  became  his  sons,  the  more  powerful 


The    Formation    of  Israel      73 

one  and  the  one  which  in  the  story  received  the 
blessing  of  his  father,with  the  rights  of  the  first  born, 
was  Ephraim,  but  actually  the  older  of  the  two  was 
Manasseh.  The  reason  of  this  is  clear  when  we  read 
the  account  of  the  division  of  the  territory  among 
the  tribes,  in  the  Book  of  Joshua.  There  it  is  said 
that  Manasseh  had  two  sections — one  section  east 
of  the  Jordan,  where  Machir,  the  first  born  of  Ma- 
nasseh dwelt,  the  other  west  of  the  Jordan.  It  was 
the  original  settlement  east  of  the  Jordan  in  north- 
ern Gilead  which  made  Manasseh  the  elder  son. 
After  Ephraim  had  entered  Canaan  by  way  of  Jeri- 
cho, and  settled  himself  in  the  central  highlands 
from  Bethel  to  Shiloh,  Manasseh  began  to  push  across 
the  Jordan  into  the  west  Jordan  region  opposite 
northern  Gilead,  until,  Manasseh  pressing  downward 
and  Ephraim  upward,  the  whole  rich  central  region, 
the  later  Samaria,  was  occupied.  Manasseh,  as  the 
tribe  which  had  earlier  reached  the  settled  state  in 
Gilead,  is  called  the  older  son,  but  it  was  to  Ephraim 
that  the  larger  and  better  share  of  the  heritage  of 
Joseph  fell. 

According  to  the  story  in  Genesis,  Rachel,  Israel's 
favorite  wife,  had  two  children,  of  whom  the 
younger,  Benjamin,  '*  son  of  the  south,"  was  born  in 
Palestine  itself.  Now  the  territory  of  that  tribe 
was  in  fact  south  of  the  territory  of  Joseph,  that  is, 


74  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Ephralm  and  Manasseh,  and  the  tribe  itself  in  the 
earlier  story  appears  as  a  sort  of  dependent  on 
Ephraim.  Benjamin  seems  indeed  to  have  been  an 
out-put  or  off-growth  of  the  latter  in  the  Palestinian 
period,  and  the  name  Benjamin,  "  son  of  the  south," 
supports  this  supposition.  There  is  a  strange  and 
gruesome  story  in  the  19th  and  following  chapters 
of  Judges,  the  historical  background  of  which  has 
never  been  satisfactorily  ascertained.  I  suspect 
that  this  story,  which  is  intended  to  account  for  the 
smallness  of  Benjamin  in  relation  to  the  neighbor- 
ing tribes,  is  in  some  way  connected  with  the  origin 
of  Benjamin  and  its  separation  from  the  kindred 
Rachelite  tribes  of  Joseph. 

There  are  four  tribes  which  are  called  sons  of 
concubines : — two,  Asher  and  Gad,  the  children  of 
Leah's  handmaid,  and  having,  apparently,  there- 
fore, some  special  connection  with  the  Leah  tribes; 
and  two,  Dan  and  Naphtali,  the  children  of  Rachel's 
handmaid,  and  having,  therefore,  presumably  some 
special  connection  with  the  Rachel  tribes. 

Of  the  two  dependents  or  inferiors  of  the  Leah 
tribes,  Asher  and  Gad,  I  have  already  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  Asher  was  in  the  land,  as  it 
would  appear  from  Egyptian  inscriptions,  before 
Israel  entered.  The  tribe  plays  no  part  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  country,  and  in  the  description  of  the 


The  b'c^rmation  of  Israel         75 

conquest  it  is  stated  that  the  territory  of  Asher 
was  imperfectly  conquered  and  the  children  of 
Asher  dwelt  among  the  Canaanites.  Tutting 
together  all  the  information  that  we  have,  it  would 
seem  that  Asher  was  in  fact  a  Canaanitc  tribe  or 
clan,  which  the  children  of  Israel  found  in  the  coun- 
try and  subjected  or  annexed,  so  that  it  became  a 
component  part  of  the  children  of  Israel.  The  tra- 
dition of  its  different  origin  and  its  Canaanite  con- 
nection survived  in  the  story  which  said  that  it  was 
the  son  not  of  a  true  wife  but  of  the  handmaid  of 
one  of  the  wives.  The  reason  for  the  connection 
with  the  Leah  tribes  is  apparent  from  the  geograph- 
ical position  of  Asher,  which  borders  on  the  land  of 
the  younger  Leah  children,  Zebulun  and  Issachar, 
lying  between  them  and  the  Phftnician  coast- 
lands. 

Gad  was  an  inhabitant  of  the  mountainous  terri- 
tory in  the  central  section  of  the  east  Jordan  region. 
The  name  Gad  is  the  name  of  a  god  of  good  fortune 
worshipped  by  Aramaeans  and  Phccnicians,  and  the 
natural  suggestion  is  that  the  children  of  Gad  were 
in  some  pre-historic  period  worshippers  of  that  god. 
There  is,  however,  in  the  notices  which  we  have  of 
the  tribe  in  the  historical  period,  nothing  to  support 
this  view,  suggested  by  the  name,  however  probable 
it  may  seem  in  itself.     Gad  was  one  of  two  or  three 


76  Early  Hebrew  Story 

tribes,  sections  of  which  inhabited  Gilead,  and  the 
region  is  quite  as  frequently,  or  more  frequently 
designated  as  Gilead  than  by  the  names  of  the  tribes 
occupying  it.  In  the  time  of  the  first  kings  Gilead 
had  become  a  sort  of  home-land  of  Israel,  a  last 
support  in  time  of  distress.  When  the  country 
west  of  the  Jordan  was  overrun  by  the  Philistines, 
it  was  in  Gilead  that  the  sons  of  Saul  found  loyal 
support.  When  Absalom  raised  the  standard  of 
revolt  against  David,  David  took  refuge  in  Gilead 
and  was  supported  by  its  inhabitants  with  similar 
loj^alty.  But  while  the  Israelites  west  of  the  Jordan 
advanced  in  civilization,  the  inhabitants  of  Gilead 
appear  to  have  remained  more  nearly  in  their  prim- 
itive condition.  It  was  from  this  region  that  Elijah, 
that  Titanic  prophet  of  primitive  type,  came. 
Gilead  is  a  country  of  very  considerable  extent, 
and  is  to-day  one  of  the  best  wooded  and  best  wat- 
ered sections,  not  only  of  Palestine  but  of  all  Syria 
— a  land  capable  of  supporting  hardy  mountaineers 
and  herdsmen.  But  it  is  also  a  land  bordering  on 
the  desert,  which,  by  its  very  position,  is  almost 
certain  to  remain  in  a  more  primitive  state  than  the 
country  to  the  west  of  the  Jordan,  or  even  than  the 
regions  north  and  south  of  it,  Moab  and  Bashan. 
The  name  Gad  appears  in  the  inscription  of  Mesha, 
king  of  Moab.     The  people  of  Gad  are  said  in  that 


The  Formation  of  Israel        n 

inscription  to  have  occupied  iVtaroth  and  other 
cities  in  the  region  north  of  the  Arnon  from  time 
immemorial.  The  passage  may  mean  that  they 
were  known  as  the  primitive  occupants  of  the  terri- 
tory. That,  in  any  case,  they  seem  to  have  been. 
Apparently,  also,  they  were  united  at  an  early  time 
to  Israel.  I  would  suggest  that  a  clan,  whose  special 
and  eponymous  god  was  Gad,  was  found  by  the 
Israelites  settled  in  Gilead  at  the  time  of  their  in- 
road, and  annexed  to  Israel,  whose  god,  Yahaweh, 
thus  became  its  god.  The  suggestion  of  the  genea- 
logical connection  which  attaches  Gad  to  the 
sons  of  Leah,  not  to  the  sons  of  Rachel,  would  indi- 
cate that  such  connection  was  made  at  an  early 
date,  when  the  Leah  tribes  occupied  this  terri- 
tory, before  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  came  to  the 
front,  or  Manasseh  secured  a  settlement  in  Gilead. 
It  was  the  possession  of  Gilead  which  rendered 
possible  the  invasion  of  northern  Canaan  by  Issa- 
char  and  Zebulun. 

If,  in  the  case  of  Asher  and  Gad,  the  genealogical 
story  has  the  meaning  which  I  have  ascribed  to  it, 
then  we  shall  expect  to  find  a  similar  connection  in 
the  case  of  Dan  and  Naphthali.  Now  Dan,  at  the 
outset,  occupied  the  territory  between  Benjamin, 
and  perhaps  the  extreme  northern  part  of  Judah, 
and  the  coast-land.     It  is  the  region  throujzh  which 


78  Early  Hebrew  Story 

one  passes  to-day  on  the  railroad  from  Jaffa  to  Jeru- 
salem. The  name  of  the  tribe,  Dan,  which  may  be  a 
shortened  form  of  Daniel,  like  Jacob  and  Joseph  for 
Jacob-el  and  Joseph-el,  does  not  help  us  to  discrim- 
inate the  origin  or  connection  of  the  tribe.  The  name 
of  its  hero,Samson,  the  man  of  Shamash  or  Shemesh, 
the  sun-god,  suggests  at  once  some  connection  with 
the  ancient  sanctuary  of  Shemesh,  or  Beth-Shemesh, 
whose  remains  exist  to-day  in  the  old  land  of  Dan 
in  the  tcl  or  ruin  mound  known  as  Ain-Shems. 
This  connection  with  Shamash  suggests,  as  in  the 
case  of  Gad,  and  possibly,  also,  of  Asher,  an  original 
connection  of  this  tribe  with  another  god  than  Ya- 
haweh,  the  god  of  Israel,  which  connection  in  itself 
indicates  non-Israelitic  origin,  and  supports  the 
theory  suggested  by  the  genealogical  tradition, 
that  it  was  of  Canaanite,  that  is,  non-Israelite 
origin,  and  was  attached  or  annexed  by  the  Rachel 
tribes,  Ephraim  and  Benjamin,  at  the  time  of  the 
conquest.  I  therefore  venture  to  suggest  that, 
whatever  the  ultimate  origin  of  this  tribe  may  have 
been,  it  was  settled  in  the  land  before  the  arrival  of 
Israel,  and  that  its  principal  and  most  highly  vene- 
rated shrine  was  Beth-Shemesh,  some  of  the  myths 
and  legends  of  which  it  has  incorporated  in  its  his- 
tory. The  pressure  of  the  incoming  Philistines 
crowded  it  out  of  its  original  situation,  and  it  ulti- 


The  Formation  ot   Israel        79 

matcly  sought  new  habitations  at  the  extreme  north 
of  Israel.  After  this  it  plays  no  part  except  as  tiie 
site  of  one  of  the  two  great  temples  of  the  Israelite 
kingdom,  the  Temple  of  Dan.  It  is  possible  that 
the  name  Dan  was  the  secondary  name  of  the  tribe, 
assumed  after  this  removal. 

Of  course  if  this  method  of  treating  the  story  of 
the  birth  of  the  tribes  be  correct,  it  follows  that 
Naphthali  had  a  similar  origin,  namely,  that  it  was 
a  Canaanitc  tribe  or  clan,  which  was  subdued  or 
attached  by  the  Rachel  tribes.  But  for  this  we 
have  no  other  evidence  than  the  analogy  of  the  pre- 
ceding. The  most  important  place  within  the  bor- 
ders of  Naphthali  was  Kcdcsh,  or  sanctuary,  a  place 
of  much  sanctity,  apparently,  in  the  pre-Israelitic 
period.  If  we  knew  the  history  of  this  region  more 
fully  it  may  be  that  we  should  find  a  relation  be- 
tween Naphthali  and  Kedesh  similar  to  that  between 
Dan  and  Beth-Shemesh.  Naphthali  occupied  the 
eastern  part  of  Galilee  (it  must  be  said  that  the 
exact  boundaries  of  Naphthali, Zebulun,  Issacharand 
Asher  are  not  clear  from  the  Bible  account).  All  this 
territory  was  half  Canaanitic,  even  in  the  historical 
period,  so  that  the  whole  region  bore  the  name  of  Gal- 
ilee, the  mark,  the  borderland  in  which  Canaanite  and 
Israelite  were  mixed.  Naphthali's  location,  as  we 
know    it,  would  suggest  a  connection    with    I.eah, 


8o  Early  Hebrew  Story 

that  is,  with  Zebulun  and  Issachar,  as  in  the  case  of 
Asher,  rather  than  with  Rachel.  What  was  the 
reason  for  its  connection  with  the  Rachel  tribes  is 
not  clear. 

So  much  for  the  historical  tradition  which  lies 
behind  these  family  stories  of  the  birth  of  the 
twelve  tribes.  It  is  in  the  main  Israelite  tradition, 
in  contrast  with  those  traditions  and  legends,  with 
which  I  shall  deal  in  the  next  chapter,  of  still 
earlier  origin,  whose  heroes  are  the  patriarchs,  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  Jacob  and  Joseph. 


L 


LECTURE    III 

THE     PATRIARCHS     AND    Til?:  SHRINES  OF  ISRAEL 

IN  this  country  we  have  practically  no  inheritance 
of  siirincs,  rites,  myths  and  legends  of  an  earlier 
religion.  Great  Britain,  also,  is  comparatively  void 
of  such  relics,  although  the  records  of  an  earlier  time 
show  that  before  the  Reformation  not  a  few  existed. 
Tiic  further  eastward  and  southward  one  goes  the 
more  such  remains  of  the  religion  of  previous  inhab- 
itants are  found.  Whoever  has  visited  Naples  at 
the  time  of  the  festival  of  St.  Januarius  and  wit- 
nessed the  liquefaction  of  his  blood  and  the  cere- 
monies connected  with  the  same,  including  the 
remarkable  procession  of  what  look  to  us  like  hea- 
then gods,  represented  by  huge  silver  figures 
mounted  on  litters,  through  the  streets  of  the  city, 
will  realize  that  he  is  witnessing,  under  the  guise  of 
Christianity,  a  heathen  festival,  which  has  under- 
gone relatively  little  change.  Everywhere  in  Ital)', 
Spain  and  the  Levant,  one  finds  the  old  gods  and 
goddesses  revered  under  the  names  of  Christian 
saints,  their    festivals   preserved    as    festivals  of  the 


82  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Christian  Church  and  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of 
their  ancient  cult  still  lingering  on. 

In  Asia  Minor,  Syria  and  Palestine,  where  two 
religions  converge,  namely,  Islam  and  Christianity, 
and  sometimes  three,  Islam,  Christianity  and  Juda- 
ism, or  even  more,  it  is  not  unusual  to  find  all  wor- 
shiping together  or  at  different  times  at  the  same 
shrine,  and  according  to  a  cult  which,  on  investiga- 
tion,prove  to  be  the  shrine  and  the  cult  of  a  still  ear- 
lier religion.  At  Kal'at  el-Hosn,near  Homs,  all  sects 
worship  at  the  shrine  of  St.  George  (el-Khuddr),  the 
richest  and  most  important  in  Northern  Syria.  At 
Smyrna,  Christian  and  Moslem  reverence  the  grave 
of  Poly  carp,  and  at  Baghdad,  Jew  and  Moslem  wor- 
ship at  the  tomb  of  Joshua,  son  of  Jehozadak,  the 
high  priest.  Elijah  on  Mt.  Carmel  is  honored  by 
all,  as  also  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem. 

One  of  the  most  curious  and  striking  examples 
of  the  persistence  of  the  ancient  religion  which  can 
be  traced  anywhere  is  that  of  the  cult  now  practised 
by  the  Moslems  at  the  so-called  Tomb  of  Joshua, 
the  son  of  Nun,  on  Giant  Mountain,  opposite  Ther- 
apia,  on  the  Asiatic  side  of  the  Bosphorus.  Here 
is  a  great  tumulus,  fifty  odd  feet  in  length,  by 
which  is  a  tekkc,  or  Moslem  monastery,  inhabited 
by  dervishes.  One  finds  shreds  of  clothing  and  the 
like  attached  to  the  trees,  shrubs  and  stones  about 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  ot  Israel  ^"^3 

tliis  tumulus,  to  which  pious  Moslems  make  pilgrim- 
ac;c.  On  inquiry  the  stranger  is  told  that  it  is  the 
Tomb  of  Joshua,  or  of  his  toe,  for  the  saint  is  repre- 
sented as  of  gigantic  size.  Before  the  Moslem  con- 
quest this  tumulus  was  a  Christian  sanctuary,  said 
to  be  the  Tomb  of  Pantaleon.  Here  prayers  were 
offered  and  miracles  wrought  for  Christians  by  Pan- 
taleon just  as  now  by  Joshua  for  Moslems.  But 
we  are  able  to  trace  the  worship  at  this  point  still 
further  back.  In  Greek  days  it  was  the  "bed  of 
Heracles,"  and  held  in  reverence  evidently  in  much 
tlie  same  manner  as  in  the  Christian  and  Moslem 
periods.  Examination  of  the  spot  and  comparison 
with  other  tumuli  in  the  Bosphorus  region  make  it 
clear  that  we  have  here  a  burial  tumulus  of  the 
population  which  antedated  the  Greek  colonization 
and  civilization  of  this  region.  As  the  place  of 
burial  of  their  tribesmen  and  forefathers,  this  place 
was  doubtless  sacred  to  these  people,  and  that 
sanctity  was  passed  on  with  the  added  charm  of 
antiquity,  mystery  and  vastness  to  the  heathen 
Greeks,  from  them  to  the  Christian  Greeks,  and 
from  them  to  the  Moslems. 

Many  more  examples,  perhaps  less  striking  and 
yet  in  some  ways  more  curious,  of  the  inheritance 
of  sacred  sites  and  sacred  customs,  I  might  adduce 
from  my  own  experience.     Elijah,  under  the  name 


^4  Early  Hebrew  Story 

of  el-Khuddr,  the  evergreen,  has  inherited  various 
sacred  places  and  sacred  customs,  one  of  the  most 
curious  being  a  sacred  grove  on  the  Euphrates,  a 
daphne,  to  use  the  Greek  term,  where  all  life  is 
sacred.  Under  the  same  name,  el-Khuddr,  St. 
George,  who,  by  the  way,  on  the  Greek  Islands  is 
always  the  heir  of  Apollo,  has  inherited  the  sanctu- 
aries of  I  scarcely  know  what  gods  in  Palestine,  and 
is  honored  by  Christian  and  Moslem  alike.  One  of 
his  shrines,  as  already  stated,  is  the  greatest  in 
northern  Syria.  It  is,  of  course,  clear  that  the 
famous  story  of  St.  George  and  the  dragon  is  itself 
an  inheritance  from  earlier  heathen  myths.  Jonah 
has  been  made,  in  Babylonia,  Mesopotamia,  and 
Syria,  heir  of  the  fish-god,  Dagon.  The  Virgin 
has  become  the  successor  of  the  sacred  places  and 
sacred  beliefs  which  attached  themselves  to  Ishtar 
and  various  heathen  goddesses.  Speaking  roughly 
she  may  be  said  to  be  sole  heir  to  all  the  feminine 
deities  of  antiquity  in  those  eastern  regions,  and  to 
a  considerable  extent  this  is  true  also  of  southern 
Europe.  It  is  this  breadth  of  inheritance  which 
gives  us  such  curious  discrepancies  in  the  worship 
of  the  Virgin.  Similarly  in  antiquity  we  find  diver- 
gencies in  the  worship  of  various  gods  and  god- 
desses, which  show  that  they  were  the  heirs  of  sev- 
eral predecessors.    This  is  noticeable  in  Roman  and 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  ^^5 

Greek  mythology,  and  in  the  Egyptian  Pantiieon. 
We  meet  it  likewise  in  the  Babylonian  and  Assy- 
rian Pantheon,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  diametrically 
opposed  characteristics  of  the  Ishtar  worshipped  at 
different  places,  like  the  Ishtar  of  Arbela  and  the 
Ishtar  of  Nineveh,  both  of  them  warrior  goddesses, 
and  the  Ishtar  of  Erech,  a  goddess  of  love  and  lust. 
The  transference  of  sacred  places  from  one  re- 
ligion to  another  involves  a  general  transference  of 
rites  and  customs,  as  well  as  names  and  charac- 
teristics. Any  educated  Christian  of  to-day,  who 
observes  the  best  known  feasts  of  Christianity, 
knows  that  the  dates  of  those  feasts,  and  much,  at 
least,  in  the  early  celebration  of  them,  is  derived, 
not  from  Christian,  but  from  heathen  sources.  The 
month  and  day  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  are  not  known, 
and  apparently  at  the  beginning  no  attempt  was 
made  by  the  Christian  Church  to  celebrate  the 
birth  of  Christ.  When  such  a  celebration  found 
its  way  into  the  Christian  Ciiurch,  wc  find  it  con- 
necting itself  not  with  our  present  Christmas  but 
with  what  we  now  celebrate  as  the  manifestation 
of  Christ  to  the  Gentiles,  or  Epiphany.  The 
great  heathen  solstkjal  feast,  which  connected 
itself  with  the  change  of  the  sun's  course  from 
south  to  north,  and  the  commencement  of  the 
new  year,  was  known  to  and  almost  of  necessity  in 


86  Early  Hebrew  Story 

some  way  observed  by  early  Christians,  with  the 
Roman  world  in  which  they  dwelt,  as  the  feast  of 
the  new  year,  the  time  of  good  wishes  and  of  gifts, 
the  time  of  riot  and  merry-making  and  joy  there- 
for. Following  a  practice  which  was  natural,  and  I 
think  we  should  say,  in  general,  commendable,  the 
Christians  gradually  introduced  a  Christian  element 
into  their  observance  of  this  feast.  The  turn  of 
the  year,  the  new  birth  of  the  year,  might  well  be 
connected  with  the  turn  in  the  world's  life,  with  the 
new  birth  of  the  w^orld  through  the  birth  of  Christ ; 
and  little  by  little  the  heathen  festival  was  con- 
verted into  a  Christian  festival  celebrating  the  birth 
of  Christ.  Heathen  customs  connected  with  the 
old  festival  were  carried  over  to  the  new,  and 
indeed,  threatened,  in  the  middle  ages,  to  swamp 
the  Christian  idea  of  the  festival  altogether.  It 
was  these  heathen  rites  and  practices  which  so  out- 
raged our  Puritan  forefathers  that  they  abandoned 
Christmas,  forbade  the  observance  of  the  festival, 
and  even  prohibited  the  eating  of  mince  pie  as  one 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  profane  Christmas 
merry-making. 

In  the  name  Easter  we  relfein  the  name  of  an  old 
Teutonic  goddess,  whose  fflRval  was  celebrated  in 
the  spring  of  the  year,  in  connection  with  the  rebirth 
or    resurrection  of    nature.      If    we  did    not    know 


Patriarchs  and  Slirincs  of   Israel '"^Z 

positively  tlic  hist(irical  origin  of  the  Christian  festi- 
val of  Raster,  wc  might  suppose  that  Teutonic 
Christians  had  taken  this  festival  over  bodily,  name 
and  all,  from  their  forbears.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  examples  of  the  method  in  which  a 
heathen  name  and  a  Christian  conception  may  be 
united  in  one.  But  not  only  the  great  annual  fes- 
tivals, even  the  very  days  of  the  week  preserve  the 
names  of  heathen  gods  and  the  memory  of  their 
worship  by  our  forefathers, — Tiw  and  Woden  and 
Thor  and  Frigg  or  Fria,  with  whom  are  oddly  com- 
bined the  sun  and  moon  and  Saturn.  All  over  the 
world  there  has  been  a  midsummer  festival.  In  the 
west  this  feast  is  now  associated  with  St.  John's  Day. 
In  connection  with  this  festival,  as  in  the  All- 
Halloween  merry-making,  heathen  rites  and  super- 
stitions were  taken  over  by  the  earlier  Christians, 
and  still  linger,  partly  as  jests,  partly  as  superstiti- 
ous survivals  in  the  popular  celebration  of  the  festi- 
val. In  fact  it  is  often  the  case  that  the  beliefs 
and  practices  of  an  earlier  religion  linger  on  in  later 
times  in  the  form  of  merry  sports  and  games.  Simi- 
larly songs  full  of  a  mystical  and  mythical  meaning 
in  primitive  times  become  the  nonsense  rhymes  of 
Mother  Goose  stories  to  amuse  the  children  of  a 
later  age. 

Ancient  rites  and  ceremonies  of  a  religious  char- 


88 


Early  Hebrew  Story 


acter  often  linger  on  in  family  and  local  customs, 
the  origin  and  meaning  of  which  are  no  longer 
known  or  understood  by  those  who  practise  them. 
A  few  years  since  a  Jewish  gentleman,  traveling 
incognito  in  Spain,  was  entertained  in  a  Spanish 
home.  At  sundown  on  Friday  evening  the  head  of 
the  family  lighted  ceremonial  candles,  after  a  well- 
known  Jewish  usage.  The  Jewish  guest  at  first 
supposed  himself  to  be  in  the  home  of  co-religion- 
ists, but  on  inquiry  found  that  his  host  was  not 
only  a  Christian,  but  was  even  unaware  of  the  Jew- 
ish nature  of  the  ceremonial  he  had  performed. 
He  only  knew  that  it  was  an  ancient  custom  which 
had  been  handed  down  in  his  family  from  father  to 
son.  Apparently  his  ancestors  had  been  Jews  who  r^' 
had  accepted  baptism  in  the  time  of/  Philip  II)  in 
preference  to  exile.  Secretly  they  nad  retained 
their  Jewish  customs  and  for  a  time  their  Jewish 
faith.  The  Jewish  faith  had  ultimately  been  lost, 
but  the  Jewish  customs  had  persisted,  after  their 
significance  had  been  forgotten,  in  the  form  of 
family  traditions. 

The  Armenians  have  a  curious  custom  connected 
with  the  feast  of  the  Transfiguration,  unknown 
in  the  west,  and  indeed  their  date  of  the  Transfigu- 
ration is  different  from  ours.  In  the  old  Persian 
midsummer  festival  of  Abrizan,  taken  over  by  the 


l\itriarchs  and  Shrines  ot  Israel  ^9 

Armenians  from  the  Persian  religion,  it  was  the  cus- 
tom   to    ascend  high    mountains,    a    part    of   that 
high-place  worship  which  is  common  over   a  large 
extent  of  country,  but  more  particularly  in  hither 
Asia.     It  was  a  day  of    frolic    and    practical    jest  ; 
part    of    the    ritual    of   the    festival    consisting  in 
pouring    water,   each    seeking    an    opportunity    to 
douse    the   others.       Early    Christian    missionaries 
(Gregory  the  Illuminator  himself,  it  is  said)  seized 
on  the  custom  of  ascending  mountains  in  this  festi- 
val and  connected   with   it  the  Transfiguration,  in 
which  our  Lord's  divine  being  was  revealed  on  the 
mount  to  three  chosen  apostles.     So  this  old  Per- 
sian feast  of  Abrizan  became  in  Armenia  the  feast  of 
the  Transfiguration  ;  and  to-day  that  feast  is  observed 
with  merrj'^-making  and  practical  jests  ;  but  the  char- 
acteristic jest  of  this  carnival,  if  one  may  so  call  it, 
is  the  throwing  of  water  by  one  person  upon  an- 
other in  sport,  a  remnant  of  the  essential  element 
of  the  ancient  heathen  festival. 

I  have  called  attention,  in  the  case  of  St.  George 
and  the  dragon,  to  the  transference  of  heathen 
stories  to  Christian  saints.  This  example  might  be 
multiplied  many  fold.  In  the  Arthurian  legends 
and  in  the  chivalric  tales  which  connect  themselves 
with  the  figure  of  Charlemagne  and  his  paladins, 
you  find  ancient  myths  repeated   as  sober  history. 


90  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Similarly  magic  tales  from  a  most  remote  antiquity 
are  repeated  in  a  new  guise  in  connection  with  his- 
torical events  and  personages.  So  the  black  magi- 
cian who,  owing  to  the  struggles  of  Egypt  with 
Ethiopia,  plays  so  important  and  characteristic  a 
part  in  Egyptian  stories  from  the  loth  century  B.C. 
onward,  and  with  whom  all  are  familiar  in  those 
famous  oriental  stories  known  to  us  as  the  Arabian 
Nights,  reappears  side  by  side  with  actual  histori- 
cal characters  almost  2000  years  his  juniors  in  the 
cycle  of  Charlemagne  romances. 

Mingled  with  the  story  of  Switzerland's  struggle 
with  Austria,    you   find  mythical   elements.     When 
I  was  a  boy  William  Tell  was  supposed  to  be  an  his- 
torical figure,  the  hero  who  led  in    the  struggle   for 
freedom,  and  we  were  taught  to  believe  as  an  histori- 
cal fact  the  tale  of  his  shooting  the  apple  from  the 
head  of  his  son.     To-day  every  boy  learns  that  Wil- 
liam Tell  is  a  mythical  figure,  and  that  the  shooting 
of  the  apple  is  an  episode  of  the  "  shooting  myth," 
which  seems   to  have  its  original  home  in  Scandina- 
via.   Similarly,  in  Burgundian  history,  as  late  as  the 
14th  century  A.  D.,  we  find  mythical  characters  of 
the  Nibelungenlied  mingled  among  and  walking,  as 
it  were,  arm   in  arm  with  true  historical  characters. 
Or  perhaps  rather  I  should   say  that  the  events  of 
myth    and  legend  and  the   actual  facts   of  history 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  ot  Israel  9' 

are,  in  a  certain  Burgundian  version  of  the  Nibe- 
lungenlied,  curiously  intertwined.  But  even  2,000 
years  before  Christ  we  find  precisely  this  same  com- 
biiKitioii  in  the  version  of  the  Gilganicsh  Mpic 
which  has  come  down  to  us,  a  version  which  the 
scribes  of  Ashurbanipal  derived  from  the  library  of 
the  Temple  of  Ishtar  at  Ercch,  in  which  events  of 
the  struggle  for  freedom  of  Erech  against  the  Elam- 
ites  arc  mingled  with  llie  zodiacal  myth  of  Gilga- 
mesh. 

The  old  inhabitants  of  Prussia  and  of  some  parts 
of  Saxony  were  not  Teutonic,  but  Slavonic.  There 
are  a  few  enclaves  of  this  population  still  existing, 
maintaining  their  old  costumes  and  customs,  and, to 
some  extent,  the  old  Wcndish  language.  A  visit  to 
the  Wends  of  the  Spreewald  twenty  odd  years  ago 
interested  me  in  a  special  study  of  the  history  and 
folklore  of  that  people,  so  far  as  it  had  been  col- 
lected. I  found,  over  and  over  again,  fairy  tales, 
identical  in  principle,  and,  to  a  large  extent,  in 
detail,  with  familiar  tales  in  Grimms  famous  Ger- 
man collection,  brought  down  almost  to  date,  with 
the  doings  of  Frederick  the  Great,  and  one  or  two 
o(  the  most  striking  characters  among  his  generals 
mixed  in.  It  was  a  good  illustration  of  the  concep- 
tion of  times  past  which  a  primitive  people  possesses. 
To  the  unlettered  Wends  the  fairy  talcs  of  their  re- 


9-  Early  Hebrew  Story 

mote  ancestors  and  the  stories  of  the  exploits  of 
the  great  Fritz  were  one  and  the  same  in  character. 
To  be  sure,  those  fairy  tales  had  in  their  essential 
principle  come  down  from  a  period  so  remote  that 
we  call  it  pre-historic,  and  the  events  of  the  great 
Fritz's  reign  were  removed  by  only  a  couple  of 
generations  from  the  present  time.  But  there  is  no 
perspective  in  folklore.  The  near  past  and  the  re- 
mote past  are  one,  and  so  the  great  Fritz  became 
contemporary  with  the  figures  which  had  enlivened 
the  tales  of  their  forefathers  a  thousand,  or  it  may 
be  two  thousand,  years  or  more  before. 

On  my  last  visit  to  Palestine  I  heard,  from  the 
mouth  of  Jewish  narrators,  a  story  of  the  so-called 
Tomb  of  the  Judges,  near  Jerusalem,  which  com- 
bined the  present  and  the  middle  ages  and  the 
period  preceding  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  one  pic- 
ture, and  this  whole  story  of  the  origin  and  history 
of  that  interesting  tomb  was  evidently  developed 
out  of  an  effort  to  find  in  the  history  and  traditions 
of  the  people  some  explanation  for  the  shape  and 
number  of  the  chambers  and  graves  which  it  con- 
tained. The  Talmud  is  full  of  tales  which,  in  a 
similar  manner,  mingle  past  and  present,  and  com- 
bine heathen  names,  heathen  m.agic  and  even  hea- 
then mythology  with  Jewish  persons  and  Jewish 
doctrines.    Something  of  the  same  sort,  also,  we  find 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  93 

in  the  later  books  of  the  Bible  itself.  Esther  and 
Mordecai  are  clearly  the  <^oddess  Ishtar  and  the  god 
Marduk.  Traditions  and  practices  connected  with 
these  two  deities  and  their  worship,  such  as  the  Baby- 
lonian New  Year's  feast,  have  mingled  themselves 
with  Jewish  customs  and  traditions  and  given  rise 
to  this  narrowest  and  fiercest  of  all  the  books  of 
the  Hebrew  canon.  The  fact  that  in  Jewish  his- 
tory this  book  is  especially  connected  with  the  mys- 
terious feast  of  Purim,  suggests  to  us  that  this  feast 
had  a  heathen  origin  connected  with  the  festivals  of 
Ishtar  and  Marduk. 

The  stories  in  the  Book  of  Daniel  are  curious 
instances  of  the  way  in  which  ancient,  race-old 
names,  later  heathen  names,  modern  religious  doc- 
trines  and  distorted  recollections  of  actual  historical 
events  are  mingled  together  in  folklore  and  a  certain 
class  of  religious  literature  based  upon  that  folklore. 
I  fancy  that  Daniel  himself,  who,  in  the  time  of 
Ezekiel,  was  a  remote  figure  of  the  past,  mentioned 
along  with  the  legendary  Noah  and  Job  as  a  great 
hero  of  remote  antiquity,  may  have  been  in  some 
way  connected  with  the  same  tradition  or  the  same 
conception  which  shows  itself  in  the  name  of  the 
tribe  Dan  ;  for  Dan  is  merely  Daniel,  with  the 
omission  of  the  divine  part,  cl,  instances  of  which 
omission  liave  been  given   in  the  previous  lecture. 


94  Early    Hebrew   Story 

If,  in  the  Talmudic  period  and  the  later  Bible 
times,  foreign  myths  and  even  the  names  of  foreign 
gods  could  so  mingle  themselves  with  Jewish  story, 
it  is  to  be  expected  that  in  primitive  Hebrew  folk- 
lore much  more  of  the  same  sort  will  be  found. 
Indeed,  the  primitive  folklore  of  Israel  would  be 
unlike  the  primitive  folklore  of  any  other  people  in 
the  world  if  we  did  not  find  such  combinations. 
In  the  fourth  lecture  I  shall  endeavor  to  show 
some  instances  of  the  survival  of  heathen  myths 
and  legends  in  the  names  and  stories  which  meet 
us  in  the  book  of  Genesis.  In  this  lecture  I  am 
concerned  with  the  adoption  by  the  Israelites 
of  the  legends  of  certain  ancient  sanctuaries,  which, 
woven  together  with  actual  Israelite  traditions  of 
the  past  and  with  historical  events  of  a  later  period, 
became  to  Israel  the  story  of  its  forefathers  and 
were  fitted  into  that  same  genealogical  system 
which  was  the  method  in  that  folklore  of  relating 
the  events  of  history. 

The  stories  of  the  patriarchs — Abraham,  Isaac  and 
Jacob — are,  to  a  considerable  extent,  the  ancient 
pre-Israelitic  legends  and  possibly  even  myths 
v^of  ancient  sanctuaries  adopted  and  adapted  by  the 
Israelites  after  their  occupation  of  the  country,  com- 
bined with  their  own  historical  traditions  and  cast  in 
the  personal  and  genealogical  mould.     All  through 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  oi  Israel  95 

the  Old  Testament  wc  have  the  evidence — and  I 
have  given  you  some  of  it  in  this  and  the  preceding  \ 
lectures — of  the  adoption  by  the  Israelites  of  the 
shrines  of  the  preceding  inhabitants.  The  religion 
of  Israel,  as  we  meet  it  in  the  historical  period,  is 
composed,  one  may  say,  of  three  parts.  First, 
there  is  the  old  religion  of  the  nomadic  period, 
common  to  the  Israelite  with  all  the  nomadic  peo- 
ples among  whom  he  dwelt.  The  religious  ideas  of 
this  period  we  can  discriminate  best  by  a  compari- 
son with  the  religion  of  the  Arabs  before  the  time 
of  Mohammed,  inasmuch  as  until  the  time  of  the 
Prophet  the  Arabs  remained  largely  untouched  by 
civilization  and  in  the  same  primitive  condition  in 
which  the  ancestors  of  the  Hebrews  were  1300  years 
B.  C.  Secondly,  there  are  those  religious  rites  and 
ceremonies,  feasts,  sacrifices  and  the  like,  which  the 
Hebrews  borrowed  from  the  Canaanitcs  at,  or  after, 
the  conquest  and  occupation  of  Pidestine ;  and 
thirdly  there  is  that  element  which  was  peculiar  to 
Israel  itself,  and  especially  that  element  derived 
from  the  revelation  of  God  through  Moses. 

If  I  may  digress  so  far,  I  would  say  that  the  ten- 
dency of  recent  critical  treatment  has  been  unduly 
to  minimize  in  the  study  of  Israel's  religion  tiie  last 
named  and  most  essential  element.  The  progress 
of    the  world    has    been    achieved    chiefly  through 


9^  Early  Hebrew  Story 

great  men,  more  than  mere  products  of  their  times 
and  of  previous  conditions,  who  often  stand  out 
from  all  that  has  gone  before  or  that  surrounds 
them,  in  such  a  way  that  they  seem  to  be  rather  a 
contradiction  than  a  result  of  their  antecedents, 
and  their  surroundings.  It  is  such  men  as  Gautama 
in  India,  Zoroaster  in  Persia,  Mohammed  in  Islam, 
Moses  in  Israel,  and  many  other  and  lesser  figures 
in  all  lands  and  ages,  whom  we  cannot  fully  account 
for  by  their  surroundings,  who  have  not  only  lifted 
their  people  up  but  have  foreseen  something  so 
much  higher  and  better  than  their  compeers  could 
grasp,  that  for  generations  their  successors  were 
still  being  inspired  and  carried  forward  by  them  to 
reach  the  goal  which  they  had  attained  at  once. 
Of  all  these  great  men  whom  I  have  mentioned, 
Moses  is,  in  my  judgment,  the  greatest,  and  certainly 
he  is  the  most  important  for  us.  In  fact  the  succeed- 
ing history  of  Israel  in  its  relation  to  him  is  strikingly 
similar  to  the  history  of  Christianity  in  relation  to 
Jesus.  To  this  day  we  find  ourselves  ever  perceiving 
and  appropriating  new  and  higher  meaning  in 
Jesus'  life  and  teaching.  On  the  other  hand  that 
life  and  teaching  are  constantly  being  encrusted 
with  the  interpretations  and  explanations  of  genera- 
tions who  believe  that  they  have  found  all  that 
there  is  in  them,  and  who  would  preserve  the  sacred 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  ol  Israel  97 

person  from  the  irreverent  contact  of  a  new  age  and 
a  new  thouglit.  Similarly  the  Christian  sacred  books 
are  guarded  by  believers  from  the  careless  and  irrev- 
erent touch  which  they  think  will  injure  or  destroy 
them.  Over  and  over  again  this  crust,  with  which 
some  age  or  generation  has  surrounded  the  sacred 
person  and  the  sacred  books  of  Christianity,  has 
been  shattered  by  those  who  wish  to  see  the  reality 
and  who,  seeing  it,  find  that  it  is  different  from  and 
greater  than  what  had  been  represented.  So  far 
from  being  injured  or  destroyed,  the  books  and  the 
life  continue  to  exist  and  to  impart  to  each  succeed^ 
ing  age  a  better  understanding  of  the  meaning  of 
Jesus  Christ,  and  an  ever  higher  conception  of  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Him.  So  in  all  ages  of  Israel's 
history  the  name  of  Moses  plays  an  important  part. 
Traditions  and  doctrines  grow  up  about  his  name, 
and  each  new  reformation  seeks  to  be  and  claims 
that  it  is  a  return  to  the  true  and  unadulterated 
teaching  of  Moses. 

But  to  return  :  Israel  adopted  the  old  shrines 
which  it  found  in  Canaan  and  the  worship  connected 
with  those  shrines,  precisely  as  the  Christians 
adopted  the  heathen  shrines  and  much  of  the  wor- 
ship connected  with  them  when  Christianity  con- 
([ucred  heathenism,  or  as  Islam  has  done  in  its 
conquest    of    both    Christian    and    heathen    lands. 


9^  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Now  the  old  shrines  of  Canaan  consisted,  primarily, 
of  caves,  fountains,  wells,  trees,  heights  and  stones, 
precisely  as  is  the  case  today  among  the  plain  folk 
of  the  land,  Moslem  and  Christian  alike.  The 
caves  were,  to  a  considerable  extent,  an  inheritance 
derived  by  the  Canaanites  themselves  from  earlier 
inhabitants.  Excavations  conducted  for  the  Pales- 
tine Exploration  Fund  at  Gezer  by  Mr.  Macalister 
have  shown  us  how  those  pre-Semitic  inhabitants, 
who  burned  their  dead  instead  of  burying  them  as 
their  Semitic  successors  did,  hollowed  caves  in  the 
soft  limestone  rock,  the  so-called  clunch,  which  is 
almost  as  easily  worked  as  chalk,  probably  for  their 
habitations,  certainly  for  the  burning  of  their  dead 
and  for  their  temples,  if  one  may  call  such  shrines 
by  such  a  name.  By  a  very  natural  process  the 
later  Semitic  inhabitants  recognized  the  sanctity  of 
these  caves.  The  caves  which  had  been  used  for 
the  burning  of  the  dead  they  continued  in  some 
cases  to  use  for  burial.  Caves  which  had  been 
shrines  retained  their  sanctity  often-times  as 
the  oracle  places  of  new  shrines. 

Beneath  the  Dome  of  the  Rock  at  Jerusalem, 
which  seems  to  represent  the  site  of  the  altar  of  the 
Temple  of  Yahaweh  from  Solomon's  time  onward, 
there  is  a  cave  which  appears  to  have  been  con- 
nected with  the  sanctity  of  that  spot,  although  we 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  99 

have  no  actual  evidence  of  any  relation  of  this 
cave  to  the  worship  there  conducted  in  Jew- 
ish  times.  In  the  case  of  other  temples,  as,  for 
example,  that  of  Hicrapolis  in  northern  Syria,  we 
have  evidence  that  the  cave  or  hole  in  the  ground 
did  play  a  part  and  was  an  essential  feature  of  the 
sanctity  of  tlie  place.  The  most  famous  of  the 
ancient  cave  shrines  of  Palestine  which  appears  in 
Hebrew  history  is  Machpclah.  This  cave  was  con- 
nected with  the  burial  of  the  dead  and  with  that 
reverence  for  ancestors  which,  while  in  the  Hebrew 
usage  it  never  became  pronounced  ancestor  worship, 
was,  nevertheless,  in  some  of  its  manifestations, 
closely  connected  with  the  cult  of  the  ancestors.  In 
Machpelah  Abraham  buried  Sarah,  his  wife  ;  there 
Isaac  was  buried  with  Rcbekah,  his  wife,  and  there 
Jacob  buried  Leah  and  was  himself  buried.  To 
this  day  this  cave  is  sacred,  and  we  have  an  almost 
continuous  tradition  that,  from  the  pre-Israelitic 
time,  represented  by  Abraham,  onward,  it  was  a 
holy  place.  Today  no  Christian  or  Jew  is  allowed 
to  enter  the  karavi,  within  which  is  the  opening  of 
the  ancient  sacred  cave.  Only  as  a  special  recog- 
nition of  royalty  was  permission  to  enter  the 
enclosure,  not  the  cave,  granted  to  the  present  Eng- 
lish King  and  the  present  German  Emperor.  The 
ordinary  Christian  is   liable  to    insult,   if    not  some- 


loo         Early   Hebrew   Story 

thing  worse,  when  he  even  goes  to  the  door  of  the 
enclosure  or  seeks  to  examine  the  stones  of  the  outer 
wall  to  determine  whether  in  fact  the  enclosure 
of  the  haram,  within  which  the  opening  of  the  sacred 
cave  lies,  is  of  Herodian  structure,  or  earlier  or  later. 
And  here  in  passing  I  may  add  that  this  reverence 
of  caves  is  by  no  means  peculiar  to  Palestine  or 
Syria.  We  find  the  same  practices  in  Greece  and 
Crete,  in  India  and  in  many  other  regions. 

Somewhat  less  sacred,  but  attested  as  always  con- 
nected with  worship  at  Hebron,  was  a  sacred  tree. 
The  present  tree,  which  is  in  the  Russian  enclosure 
and  is  supposed  to  be  Abraham's  oak,  is  now  almost 
dead.  It  is,  presumably,  the  successor  of  a  series  of 
such  trees,  or  there  may  have  been  at  times  more 
than  one  tree.  Today  trees  are  sacred  to  the  Mos- 
lem, and  at  places,  to  the  Christian  population  of 
Palestine.  You  will  find  everywhere  solitary  trees, 
like  the  oak  at  Seilun,  supposed  to  be  the  ancient 
Shiloh,  decorated  with  the  shreds  of  the  garments 
of  devotees  who  have  sought  to  come  in  contact  with 
the  divine  being  or  agency  which  exists  in  or  is 
expressed  through  that  tree,  by  placing  parts  of  them- 
selves, or,  as  surrogates  for  themselves,  their  clothing 
upon  the  tree.  All  through  the  Old  Testament 
we  have  evidence  of  this  sacredness  of  trees,  and 
indeed  the  prophets  never  tire  of  denouncing  the 


Patriarclis  and  Shrines  of  Israel  '^' 

immoral  practices  connected  with  this  tree  worship 
and  the  lust  which  found  satisfaction  in  the  name  of 
religion  under  every  green  tree.  Hebron,  Kiriath- 
Arba  or  Arbaim,  is,  from  time  immemorial,  represent- 
ed as  the  place  of  a  sacred  tree  or,  as  the  translation 
of  our  Old  Testament  so  often  has  it,  "a  grove.  " 
Of  course  it  is  not  necessary  that  tree  or  grove  and 
cave  siiould  stand  in  any  opposition  to  one  another. 
They  may  be  parts  of  the  same  sanctuary,  indica- 
tions of  the  presence  or  theophany  of  the  god  or 
gods  at  that  point. 

Another  natural  place  of  worship,  not  only  in 
Palestine  but  throughout  the  east,  was  the  high 
place.  The  great  mountain  of  Hermon  was  sacred. 
The  very  name  Hermon  is  an  indication  of  the 
sanctity  of  the  spot.  It  was  an  harain,  a  set-apart 
place.  Sinai,  literally  the  place  of  the  god  Sin,  was 
another  of  the  famous  sacred  heights  of  the  Pales- 
tinian region.  ,  Mt.  Nebo  indicates  in  its  name  that 
the  worship  of  the  god  Nebo  was  connected  with  that 
mountain,  which,  at  a  later  date,  was  brought  by  the 
Israelites  into  connection  with  their  own  great 
religious  leader  and  revealcr,  Moses.  The  temple  at 
Jerusalem  was  erected  on  a  height,  though  here,  as 
already  pointed  out,  an  additional  cause  for  sanctity 
may  be  surmised  in  the  ancient  cave  which  existed 
there.      High   places  are  mentioned  over  and    over 


I02  Early  Hebrew  Story 

again  in  the  Bible,  and  the  Deuteronomic  writers 
and  compilers  protest  against  them  as  strongly  as 
the  earlier  prophets  protested  against  the  worship 
under  green  trees. 

The  philosophy  of  the  cult  of  the  high  places  is, 
I  think,  apparent  without  further  discussion.  I 
might  add  that  the  ziggiirat,  characteristic  of  the 
great  temples  of  Babylonia,  both  by  its  name 
ziggurat,  peak,  and  by  its  form,  shows  this  same 
high  place  worship  in  Babylonia.  The  Temple 
of  Bel-Enlil,  the  god  of  the  spirit-world,  the 
lord  of  all  creation,  at  Ekur,  mountain  house,  in 
Nippur,  the  most  ancient  sacred  city  of  Babylonia, 
is  a  good  indication  of  the  ideas  connected  with 
such  a  cult.  From  the  beginning,  certainly,  of  the 
Semitic  period,  say  3000  B.  C,  or  thereabouts 
onward,  there  stood,  in  connection  with  this  temple, 
a  square  pyramid  in  three  terraces.  At  the  foot 
was  the  altar.  On  the  top  was,  if  we  may  judge 
from  Herodotus'  account  of  the  worship  in  the  later 
Babylonian  ziggtirats,  where  seven  terraces  were 
substituted  for  three,  a  shrine,  a  simple  room,  which 
was  meant  to  be  the  habitation  of  the  divinity  when 
he  came  down,  where  there  may  have  been  some 
shew  bread  or  the  like,  and  where,  Herodotus  says, 
in  Babylon  a  priestess  spent  the  night,  ever  ready 
for  her  lord  and  master.     This   whole    representa- 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of   Israel   "^3 

tion  is  clearly  figurative  of  the  god  of  the  storm, 
who  comes  down  in  the  thunder  clouds,  which  cut 
off  from  sight  the  summit  of  the  mountain.  Tiiesc 
dark  clouds  about  the  summit  of  the  height  show 
that  he  is  there,  present  in  his  abode,  and  all  men 
know  his  presence  by  the  voice,  the  thunder,  which 
he  utters  (note,  by  the  way,  that  the  Hebrews  called 
thunder  the  "voice  of  Yahaweh") ;  while  the  bright- 
ness and  awfulncss  of  his  presence  is  revealed  by 
the  lightning  flash,  the  "hail  stones  and  coals  of 
fire,  "  to  use  the  familiar  expressions  taken  from  our 
English  translation  of  the  i8th  Psalm,  that  grand 
picture  of  God  revealing  Himself  in  the  thunder 
storm.  So  in  the  Babylonian  temple,  and  one  may 
say  that  the  Hebrew  temple  was  the  lineal  descend- 
ant of  the  same  conception,  the  god  mysteriously 
dwelt  in  the  dark  chamber  on  the  summit  of  the 
artificial  mountain,  at  the  foot  of  which  sacrifice 
was  offered  to  him.  But  this  is  precisely  the  picture 
which  we  have  in  Exodus  of  the  theophany  of  tfie 
God  of  Israel  at  Sinai.  The  Israelites  offered  their 
sacrifices  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  from  the  sum- 
mit of  which  God  spoke  to  them  in  thunder  and 
lightning.  Moses,  onl)-,  might  venture  within  the 
Holy  of  Holies,  the  high  priest  and  interpreter  of 
the  oracles  of  God. 

It  was   the   same   idea   which    gave    sanctity    to 


I04  Early  Hebrew  Story 

places  like  Mizpah,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  still  gives  sanctity,  for  Moslem  and  Chris- 
tian alike,  to  many  of  the  high  mountains  in  Syria  and 
Palestine,  like  Jebel  Osha,  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  on  top  of  which,  near  the  very  highest  sum- 
mit, and  in  a  place  which  itself  has  a  marvelous  view 
of  the  Jordan  valley  beneath  and  the  greater  part 
of  western  Palestine  beyond,  stands  a  sacred  oak, 
a  well  and  a  kiibbe  or  shrine  of  the  prophet  Hosea, 
at  which  worship  and  sacrifices  are  offered  to  this 
day.  Here  we  have  a  survival  of  sanctity,  precisely 
as  in  the  case  of  Machpelah  and  the  trees  of  Hebron  ; 
and  here  again  we  have  two  sacred  things  united, 
the  tree  and  the  height,  just  as  at  Hebron  we  had 
the  tree  and  the  cave. 

Wells  in  that  land,  and  still  more,  fountains  were 
and  still  are  held  sacred.  Man  sought  the  source 
of  life.  Man  realized  the  marvel  and  wonder  of  the 
divine  presence  in  life — the  life  which  showed  itself 
in  the  tree,  and  still  more  the  life  which  showed  it- 
self in  the  fertilizing  water  which  came  down  from 
heaven  or,  pouring  out  from  the  ground,  gave  life  to 
the  earth.  In  that  parched  and  half  waterless  region, 
wells  and  fountains  are  more  remarkable  than  else- 
where,and  the  abounding  life  about  them,  in  startling 
contrast  with  the  arid  or  semi-arid  environment, 
forces  itself  upon  the  thought  and  imagination  of 


l^atriarchs  aiul  Shrines  of  Israel  io5 

every  beholder  and  brings  home  almost  irn^oluntarily 
the  consciousness  of  a  mighty  life-giving  power,  hid- 
den somewhere,  but  in  touch  with  that  water  source, 
l-'amous  in  all  Israelite  history  are  especially  two 
water  sources,  one  at  the  extreme  south,  one  at  the 
extreme  north  of  the  country.  According  to  Isra- 
elite tradition,  Beersheba,  interpreted  by  the  Jews 
as  seven  wells,  was  the  creation  of  their  ancestors. 
Today  there  are  at  the  ancient  site,  surrounded  by 
a  great  tract  of  wilderness,  some  four  or  five  wells 
in  actual  operation,  and  evidences  of  the  existence 
of  still  more,  apparently  seven  in  all.  It  is  a  won- 
derful thing,  after  a  long  day's  journey  over  a  water- 
less route,  with  no  settled  habitations  visible 
anj-where,  to  find  this  center  of  activity  and  move- 
ment in  the  waste.  Where  the  people  come  from,  it 
is  hard  to  tell,  but  from  every  side  they  are  pouring 
in  and  pouring  out,  drawing  and  carrying  away  the 
precious  water  which  means  life  to  them  and  their 
flocks  and  herds.  It  has  been  a  center  and  a  gath- 
ering place  for  the  nomadic  populations  of  that 
region  from  time  beyond  ken,  and  will,  I  presume, 
continue  to  be  so ;  and  to  the  primitive  men  of  that 
region  today  there  is  a  sacredness  connected  with 
the  site,  certainly  akin  to  that  sacredness  which 
attached  itself  to  it  in  the  remote  period. 

With  this  site,  to  some  extent,  Abraham  is  con- 


io6  Early  Hebrew  Story 

nected  in  the  old  Israelite  tradition,  as  we  find  it  in 
the  Book  of  Genesis,  but  more  particularly  it  was 
the  site  of  the  tradition  of  Isaac.  It  was  a  spot 
especially  sacred  to  the  Israelites  of  the  northern 
kingdom.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  in  the  9th  and 
8th  centuries  B.  C,  Beersheba  was  a  favorite  place 
of  pilgrimage  for  them,  so  that  men  went  from 
Gilead  and  Samaria  to  seek  God  and  worship  there, 
as  we  learn  from  references  in  the  prophets.  The 
peculiar  connection  which  Israel,  in  distinction  from 
Judah,  claimed  with  this  sanctuary  suggests  at 
once  how  and  why  Isaac  was  the  father  of  Jacob, 
the  land  from  which  these  pilgrimages  were  made. 
Of  an  entirely  different  character  is  the  other  great 
sacred  source  of  the  north.  At  the  foot  of  Hermon 
the  River  Jordan  takes  its  rise.  There  are  three 
principal  sources,  and  at  two  of  these  the  water 
bubbles  out  of  the  ground  with  that  roaring  noise 
so  aptly  described  in  the  42nd  Psalm:  "  One  deep 
calleth  another,  because  of  the  noise  of  thy  water- 
pipes  :  all  thy  waves  and  storms  are  gone  over  me.  " 
At  Banias,  which  was  the  ancient  Paneas,  the  place 
of  the  worship  of  the  god  Pan,  the  water  rushes  out 
with  a  great  noise  from  beneath  the  foot  of  a  cliff 
on  the  lowest  slopes  of  Hermon.  Above  this  great 
spring  is  a  cave,  and  by  it  rock  cuttings  and  inscrip- 
tions of  the  Greek  heathen  period.     At  that  time. 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  'O/ 

and  probably  much  earlier,  worship  was  offered  ^ 
at  this  source  of  life  to  the  divine  source  of  life, 
which  poured  out  wealth  and  blessing  for  man. 
Still  more  striking  is  the  effect  of  the  stream  which 
wells  out  from  the  mound  of  Tel  cl-Kadhi,  on  the 
plain  beneath,  a  mile  or  more  away.  Tel  el-Kadhi 
is  a  little  hill,  largely  if  not  altogether  artificial,  ris- 
ing out  of  the  plain,  covered  for  the  most  part  with 
a  thick  growth  of  trees  and  vegetation.  Here, 
away  from  the  homes  of  men,  in  the  loneliness  of 
the  uninhabited  plain,  one  is  more  impressed  even 
than  at  Banias  with  the  roaring,  rushing  sound  of 
the  waters,  which  pour  out  of  the  ground  in  so 
great  a  volume  as  to  form  at  once  a  river.  This, 
j)re.>umably,  was  the  site  of  the  ancient  temple  of 
Dan.  and  the  worship  at  this  temple,  I  fancy,  was 
always  of  a  primitive  sort,  such  as  was  befitting  the 
worship  of  the  god  who  exhibited  himself  in  such 
nature  forces.  The  Psalm  which  I  have  quoted 
above  was,  I  think,  in  its  original  form,  a  liturgical 
hymn  sung  at  the  great  autumnal  festival  by  worship- 
pers at  this  shrine,  where  served,  according  to  tradi- 
tion, the  descendants  of  Moses. 

Besides  the  worship  which  connected  itself  with 
such  manifestations  of  divine  power  and  divine  life, 
with  the  mysteries  of  the  wide  heaven  above  or  the 
dark  interior   of  the  earth  beneath,  we    find,  also. 


io8  Early  Hebrew  Story 

constant  reference  in  the  early  books  of  the  Bible, 
and  indeed  until  after  the  time  of  Isaiah,  to  stone 
worship.  One  of  the  familiar  names  for  God  was 
Rock,  as  in  the  thirty-third  chapter  of  Deuteron- 
omy, in  various  Psalms,  and  in  such  names  as 
Ebenezer,  "  Rock  is  strength  "  (parallel  with  Elie- 
zer,  God  is  strength).  When  Isaiah  would  depict  the 
coming  spread  of  the  religion  of  Israel's  god,  so  that 
Yahaweh  shall  be  worshipped  in  Egypt,  he  ex- 
presses his  meaning  by  saying  that  a  viazsebah,  or 
stone  pillar  shall  be  set  up  there  (Is.  XIX,  19). 
That  is  to  say,  he  cannot  think  of  the  worship  of 
Yahaweh  dissociated  from  the  sacred  stone.  This 
sacredness  of  stones,  it  may  be  added,  lingers  on  in 
Syria  and  Palestine  today. 

The  reason  for  this  worship  of  stones  is  not  so 
clear  as  the  reason  for  the  other  sorts  of  worship 
already  described,  but  the  fact  is  well  estabHshec 
The  heathen  Arabs  worshipped  stones,  believing 
that  the  divinity  was  or  manifested  himself  in 
those  stones.  A  single  prominent  stone,  a  meteoric 
stone,  a  stone  of  some  peculiar  form,  particularly  if 
there  was  any  phallic  suggestion  in  its  shape,  or  a 
striking  group  of  stones,  attracted  such  worship. 
The  sacrifice  offered  consisted  in  pouring  blood  upon 
the  stone  or  stones,  that  the  divinity  therein  con- 
tained might  receive  the  life,  which  was  the  blood 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  ^^9 

of  the  victim  offered.  Tliey  also  set  up  stones, 
which  were  reverenced  in  a  similar  way,  by  pouring 
blood  upon  them,  touching  them  with  the  hand  and 
kissing  them  as  surrogates  of  the  divinity  with  whom 
they  sought  to  come  in  contact.  The  same  thing 
was  done  in  Canaan  from  a  very  early  period 
onward,  as  is  evident  from  references  in  the  Bible, 
and  also  from  the  discoveries  which  have  been  made 
by  explorers.  One  of  the  most  striking  discoveries 
of  sacred  stones  yet  made  is  that  of  the  mega- 
lithic  temple  at  Gezcr,  where  a  number  of  stones 
were  set  up,  not  in  a  circular  form,  the  gilgal, 
as  is  common  east  of  the  Jordan  and  in  the  Jordan 
valley,  a  form  resembling  that  so  well  known  at 
Stone  Henge  in  Salisbury,  but  in  an  alignment. 
The  original  object  of  worship,  as  is  evident  from 
'he  surroundings  and  the  way  in  which  the  stone 
tself  is  smoothed  and  polished,  was  a  stone,  some- 
what smaller  than  those  about  it,  of  natural  phallic 
shape.  The  other  stones,  some  of  them  having  an 
artificial  and  still  more  evident  phallic  shape,  and 
some  of  them  mere  rude  blocks,  support  and 
strengthen  this  original  object  of  worship. 

There  are  in  the  liible  traditions,  like  that  of  Lot's 
wife  who  was  turn  :d  to  salt,  which  show,  in  a  very 
simple  way,  the  natural  superstitions  which  connect 
themselves  with  stones  of  peculiar  form.      Modern 


,/ 


iio  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Arabs  have  pointed  out  to  me,  in  other  places  and 
outside  of  Palestine,  stone  formations  with  which 
they  connected  some  myth  or  legend,  the  origin  of 
which  was  manifest  the  instant  one  saw  the  stone  ; 
but  this  is  common  everywhere.  The  curious 
freaks  of  nature  by  which  mountain-sides,  stone 
heaps  and  individual  stones  assume  weird  shapes, 
suggesting  resemblances  to  human  constructions,  or 
animal  and  human  forms,  lead  to  legends,  according 
to  which  these  natural  manifestations  are  accounted 
for  as  actual  creations  of  divine,  or  semi-divine  or 
sometimes  of  human  beings,  nor  can  you  persuade 
the  people  among  whom  these  traditions  are  extant 
that  these  things  are  mere  freaks  of  nature  and  not 
formed  and  shaped  for  the  purpose  which  the  tra- 
dition ascribes  to  them. 
Z'  One  of  the  most  singular  stone  formations  west 
of  the  Jordan  in  Palestine  is  to  be  seen  in  the  great 
stone  field  a  little  to  the  north  of  the  modern  town 
of  Beitin,  the  ancient  Bethel.  One  is  here,  if  I  may 
borrow  an  expression,  "on  the  roof  of  the  world." 
A  few  hundred  feet  to  the  north  of  this  stone  field 
you  come  to  a  divide,  from  which  you  can  look  north 
and  south.  You  are  far  above  Jerusalem,  which 
is  visible  away  to  the  south.  You  look  over  a  suc- 
cession of  hills  and  then  across  the  huge,  deep  cleft 
of  the  Jordan  valley  to  Gilead  and  Moab  beyond. 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  i'' 

The  situation  is  imposing.  One  feels  a  sense  of 
awe  as  one  stands  at  this  point :  and  just  here,  on 
tlie  slope  of  this  roof,  near  its  summit,  occurs  a 
freak  of  nature  so  singular  that  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
vince one's  self  that  nature  and  not  man  is  the 
author.  Huge  stones  seem  to  be  piled  one  upon 
another  to  make  columns  nine  or  ten  feet  ormorein 
height.  In  reality  these  colums  are  produced  by 
erosion,  and  the  different  density  of  the  strata  has 
led  to  greater  erosion  in  one  part  than  another,  so 
that  they  taper  and  bulge  in  manifold  and  various 
shapes.  So  strong  is  the  resemblance  to  construc- 
tions made  by  men's  hands  that  I  myself  have  gone 
to  this  spot,  not  once  but  several  times,  and  exam- 
ined every  stone,  to  make  sure  that  there  could  be 
no  mistake  in  my  impression,  and  I  have  found  that 
others  have  done  the  same  thing.  It  is  only  after 
such  a  careful  examination  of  the  site  that  one  con- 
vinces one's  self  that  in  reality  these  stone  pillars  are 
the  work  of  nature,  not  of  man.  They  look  exactly 
like  the  "pillars  of  testimony"  which  are  to  be  seen 
all  over  the  country,  only  of  gigantic  size.  These 
"pillars  of  testimony"  occur  today  in  groups  at  many 
places,  especially  where  the  traveler  first  catches 
sight  of  some  sacred  spot.  Thereupon  he  sets 
stones  one  upon  the  othrr  in  the  shape  of  a  column, 
and  says,  "  Oh,  so  and  so  (mentioning  the  name  of 


112  Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  saint  whose  well  he  sees),  as  I  by  this  bear  testi- 
mony to  thee,  so  do  thou  bear  testimony  to  me  in 
the  day  of  judgment."  The  custom  in  some  form 
is  clearly  a  very  ancient  one,  and  references  to  sim- 
ilar heaps  of  testimony  occur  in  the  Hebrew  scrip- 
tures (Cf.  Gen.  XXXI,  47  f.). 

Whoever  stands  on  the  hillside  above  Bethel, 
especially  toward  evening,  if  he  have  any  sympathy 
with  nature  and  the  mysticism  of  nature's  children 
in  his  soul,  understands  with  a  new  understanding 
the  fascinating  story  of  Jacob's  flight  when  night 
overtook  him  near  Bethel,  and  there  on  the  height, 
which  was  so  much  nearer  to  heaven  than  all  the 
country  round  about  him,  he  saw  the  "  ladder,"  or 
better,  the  stage-tower  that  reached  up  to  heaven  and 
the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  (Gen. 
XXVIII).  Surely  it  is  a  point  at  which  heaven  and 
earth  meet.  And  there  stand  the  pillars  which  the 
mighty  heroes  of  antiquity  erected  ;  for  those  stones 
are  not  stones  which  the  pigmies  of  the  present 
day  could  pick  up  and  set  one  upon  another.  It 
was  only  the  giant  men  of  olden  times  who  could 
set  up  as  memorials  of  communion  with  God  these 
mighty  stones  at  this  point  where  heaven  and  earth 
are  so  clearly  united. 

Here  you  have  another  natural   sanctuary,  which 
became  ultimately  one  of  the  two  great  temples  of 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  '  '3 

Israel  of  tlic  nortli.  Hut  the  worship  at  this  point, 
I  fancy,  was  never  conducted,  as  at  Jerusalem,  in  a 
^reat  temple  built  with  hands.  It  was  a  more  prim- 
itive, simple  out-of-door  worship,  but  none  the 
less  the  place  was  a  place  of  the  greatest  sanc- 
tity from  pre-historic  times  onward.  It  was  not 
only  the  ancestors  of  Israel,  but  Israel  itself  which 
worshipped  here.  Bethel  and  Dan,  two  natural  holy 
places,  were  made  royal  chapels  of  the  kingdom  of 
Israel,  just  because  they  were  natural,  primitive,  holy 
places,  at  the  time  when  Israel,  in  revolt  against  the 
oriental  despotism  of  Solomon's  son,  was  harking 
back  to  things  primitive,  political  and  religious. 
These  natural  high  places  of  the  most  primitive 
period,  with  their  simple  ancestral  worship,  were 
the  protest  of  Israel  against  the  new,  hand-made 
temple  of  Phct^nician  type  at  Jerusalem. 

Bethel  is  in  Jacob'j  land  and  its  traditions  belong 
to  Jacob.  Later  the  land  became  the  very  home- 
land and  center  of  Israel,  and  Israel  was  identified 
with  Jacob.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  the 
legends  connected  with  Bethel  and  Jacob  should 
have  come  to  play,  as  they  have,  so  important  a 
part  in  Israel's  history. 

I  have  said  that  Abraham  is  connected  more 
especially  with  Hebron.  In  the  genealogies  of 
the   patriarchs    the   greater    antiquity  of    Hebron, 


l/ 


"4  Early  Hebrew  Story 

or  rather  of  the  relation  of  the  Hebrews  to 
Hebron,  seems  to  be  recognized  in  the  ancestral 
relation  of  Abraham  to  Jacob.  But  why,  then,  was 
Isaac,  who  was  connected  with  the  still  more 
southern  Beersheba,  the  son  instead  of  the  father 
of  Abraham  ?  You  will  note  that  in  the  patri- 
archal stories  Abraham  and  Jacob  are  much  more 
real  and  vivid  than  the  more  shadowy  Isaac,  and 
much  more  is  told  about  them  than  about  him.  The 
situation  of  Hebron  and  Bethel,  in  the  center  of  the 
life  and  history  of  Israel,  accounts  for  this  more  ac- 
tive and  fuller  part  which  Abraham  and  Jacob  play 
in  Hebrew  story,  as  over  against  the  less  vivid  and 
the  less  personal  character  of  the  narrative  of  Isaac, 
the  hero  of  the  more  remote  Beersheba.  The 
peculiar  relation  of  Beersheba  to  Israel,  as  it 
appears  in  historic  times,  has  been  already  noted. 
This  relation  is  reflected  in  the  genealogy  in 
which  Isaac  is  represented  as  Jacob's  father.  But 
if  Isaac  were  Jacob's  father,  then,  when  the  gene- 
alogy was  completed  by  bringing  all  the  patri- 
archs into  a  family  relation,  it  was  impossible  to 
assign  to  Abraham  that  position,  as  he  was  clearly 
older  than  Jacob.  He  must,  therefore,  become  the 
father  of  Isaac,  and  so  we  have  the  genealogy  of  the 
patriarchs  or  heroes  of  those  three  great  primeval 
sanctuaries,  in  the  order  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob. 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  '  '5 

I  li.'ivc  already  called  attention  in  a  previous  lec- 
ture to  the  fact  that  the  land  in  which  Bethel  stood 
was  called  in  prehistoric  times,  as  we  learn  from  the 
Egyptian  inscriptions,  Jacob-el.  It  was  the  land  of  — 
Jacob.  lUit  in  the  story  of  the  Book  of  Genesis, 
Jacob  is  identified  with  Israel,  and  the  two  are 
declared  to  be  one  and  the  same.  I  do  not  know 
any  very  much  better  evidence  for  the  combina- 
tion which  I  have  already  suggested  of  the  tra- 
ditions of  Israel  with  the  traditions  native  to  '' 
the   country  than    this   combination    of    these  two 

names — Israel,  tiie    proper    name    of  the  people,    - 

and  Jacob,  the  name  of  the  country  into  which 
Israel    comes.       This    identification    having    taken 

place,  you  find,  combined  with  the  old  pre-Israelite 

legends  of  Jacob-el  and  Bethel,  the  whole  story  of 
Israel,  as  it  existed  in  the  traditions  of  the  people 
down  to  the  time  when  these  traditions  and  legends 
assumed  comparatively  fixed  shape  in  the  folklore 

of    the    Israelites,    told    as    the    personal    story    of   

Jacob-Israel.  I  have  already  called  attention  to 
the  fact  that,  from  archaeological  sources,  especially 
from  the  tablets  of  Tel  el-Amarna,  we  have  evidence 
of  the  invasion  of  Canaan  toward  the  close  of  the 
15th  and  the  beginning  of  the  14th  century  B.  C.^ 
by  Aramaean  tribes,  the  first-comers  of  that  long 
Aramaean  invasion  which  did   not  end   until   toward 


ii6         Early   Hebrew   Story 

the  time  of  Christ.  The  connection  of  Israel  with 
these  Aramaeans  appears  in  the  stories,  woven 
into  the  Jacob-Israel  cycle,  of  the  marriage  with 
Laban's  daughter  and  the  long  sojourn  in  Pad- 
dan-Aram. 

I  have  also  said  that  one  event  in  its  history  made 
such  an  impression  upon  Israel  that  it  was  told 
over  and  over  again  in  folklore  as  a  part  of  the  story 
of  each  of  the  various  ancestors ;  that  it  was  told  in 
song ,  and  that  in  fact  it  is  reflected  through  all  the 
literature  of  Israel, —  namely  the  deliverance  from 
Egypt.  In  the  story  of  Jacob-Israel  you  have  a 
part,  but  only  a  part  of  the  tale  of  the  Egyptian 
sojourn  and  the  Egyptian  bondage,  the  descent  into 
Egypt  by  Jacob,  Note,  however,  that  Jacob  was 
not  buried  in  Egypt;  his  burial-place  was  in  Canaan. 

More  of  the  story  of  the  Egyptian  bondage  is  told 
in  the  story  of  Joseph.  I  have  already  called  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  the  country  about  Shechem 
was  known  in  the  i6th  century,  as  evidenced  by  the 
Egyptian  inscriptions,  as  Joseph-el,  precisely  as  the 
territory  somewhat  further  south  was  identified  as 
Jacob-el.  The  tomb  of  Joseph  was  shown  in  Israel- 
ite times  in  the  neighborhood  of  Shechem  (Josh. 
XXIV,  32).  This  was  the  region  which  belonged 
to  the  sons  of  Joseph,  Manasseh  and  Ephraim. 
Joseph  appears  as  a  patriarch  in  the  stories  of  Gen- 


Patriiirclis  and  Shrines  of  Israel  '  '7 

esis,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and 
Jacob,  so  in  his  case  also  we  have  to  do,  I  presume, 
primarily  with  the  ancient  pre-Israelite  hero  of  a 
region,  whose  special  shrine,  perhaps,  was  at  She- 
chcm.  But  this  story  has  been  quite  differently 
treated,  in  many  respects,  from  those  of  the  older 
patriarchs,  and  consequently  stands  in  a  somewhat 
different  relation  to  Israelite  history  from  their 
stories.  In  the  first  place  Israel's  relation  to  this 
region  and  its  stories  was  later  than  its  relation 
to  the  regions  and  stories  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and 
Jacob.  Even  the  Joseph  tribes  did  not  at  first 
occupy  the  neighborhood  of  Shechem.  They  made 
their  first  settlement  in  the  neighborhood  of  Bethel 
and  Ai  ;  and  at  the  period  when  the  Ark  was  loca- 
ted at  Shiloh,  it  would  appear  that  Shechem  was 
still  strongly  Canaanitic.  It  seems  that  the  process 
of  Hebraization  (if  one  may  be  pardoned  such  a 
word)  of  the  richer  nortiiern  part  of  tlie  country, 
later  known  as  Samaria,  the  regions  about  Shechem, 
Samaria  and  Dothan,  was  slow.  The  occupation  of 
this  region  of  Joseph  occurring  thus  at  a  later  date 
Joseph  failed  to  take  rank  with  the  ancestors  of  the 
whole  people,  and  became  instead  the  father  only 
of  the  two  tribes,  Ephraim  and  Manasseh,  which 
occupied    the  Joseph   territory. 

As   the  father  of  Ejihraim  and  Manasseh,  Joseph 


ii8  Early  Hebrew  Story 

became  the  son  of  Israel  and  the  brother 
of  the  other  tribal  eponyms  (it  is  perhaps  note- 
worthy that  it  is  precisely  in  this  part  of  the 
Jacob-Israel  story  that  the  name  Israel  takes 
the  place  of  Jacob).  A  certain  relation  of  un- 
friendliness and  envy  on  the  part  of  the  older 
tribes  towards  the  newcomers,  who,  entering  after 
them,  occupied  the  best  part  of  the  country,  seems 
to  be  indicated  in  the  story  of  Joseph  and  his  breth- 
ren. Certainly  there  is  an  element  of  pride  and 
boastfulness  on  the  part  of  the  Josephites  toward 
their  less  prosperous  and  powerful  brother  tribes. 
More  characteristic  is  the  peculiar  relation  of  the 
Josephite  tribes  to  the  Egyptian  sojourn  and  the 
deliverance  from  Egyptian  bondage  suggested  by 
the  story  of  Joseph,  which  has  led  not  a  few  mod- 
ern scholars  to  conjecture  that  the  deliverance  from 
Egypt  in  fact  affected  only  these  tribes.  Certainly 
the  story  of  that  bondage  and  deliverance  is  told 
in  unmistakable  fashion  in  the  legend  of  Joseph. 

In  its  details,  also,  the  story  of  Joseph  has  received 
a  different  treatment  from  those  of  the  other  patri- 
archs. It  has  been  spun  out  and  developed  at  greater 
length  and  with  a  much  greater  wealth  of  personal 
detail.  We  have  in  it  seemingly  actual  contact 
with  events  of  Egyptian  history,  Egyptian  social 
and    political   life,    and   Egyptian    literature.     The 


Patriarchs  and  Shrincsof  Israel  '  ">> 

story  of  Joseph  and  Potiphar's  wife  sounds  strangely 
like  the  talcs  of  that  romantic  literature  in  which 
the  Egyptians  delighted,  and  the  main  incident  of 
this  tale  has  often  been  compared  with  an  incident 
in  the  Egyptian  tale  of  the  Two  Brothers,  which 
can  be  traced  back  certainly  to  the  i8th  dynasty. 
The  conditions  of  the  semi-Asiatic  rule  of  Amenho- 
tep  IV..  and  his  apparently  Semitic  vizier,  Janhamu, 
seem  to  be  reflected  in  tlic  story  of  Joseph's  pro- 
motion to  favor  and  his  government  of  Egypt. 
The  historian  (or  might  we  venture  rather  to  say 
the  storian  ?^  of  Joseph  was  familiar,  also,  with  the 
peculiar  agrarian  conditions  of  Egypt,  dating  from 
a  still  earlier  period,  but  connected  by  him  with  the 
hero  of  his  story.  The  Egyptian  names  used 
in  the  narrative,  on  the  other  hand,  appear  to 
belong  to  a  much  later  period,  not  earlier,  certainly, 
than  looo  B.  C.  Altogether  we  have  in  Joseph's 
story  a  most  interesting  combination  of  elements 
from  various  sources  and  periods,  woven  together 
with  such  art  as  to  give  a  vivid,  personal  narra- 
tive. 

But  while  the  Egyptian  element  is  strongest  in 
this  narrative,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  a 
migration  into  Egypt,  an  affliction  there,  and  a 
deliverance  through  the  might  of  Yahaweh  are 
described  also  in  the  story  of  Abraham,  although  in 


I20  Early  Hebrew  Story 

a  quite  different  form  (Gen.  XII  ).  Abraham,  or 
Abram,  as  he  is  there  called  (some  writers  have 
made  much  of  this  distinction  between  Abraham 
and  Abram,  and  suggested  that  there  is  a  combina- 
tion of  two  persons  and  therefore  two  traditions 
here  also,  just  as  in  the  case  of  Jacob  and  Israel. 
I  fancy  that  the  two  forms  of  the  name  are 
rather  due  to  local  and  dialectical  differences  of 
utterance),  went  down  into  Egypt  with  his  wife, 
Sarah,  called  in  these  earlier  stories  Sarai  (here 
again  the  difference  of  names  seems  to  be  due  to 
dialectical  differences  of  utterance,  and  the  differ- 
entiation and  combination  of  Sarai  and  Sarah  in 
the  story  in  Genesis  show  merely  that  we  have  the 
same  story  passing  through  the  mouths  of  people 
speaking  different  dialects  and  hence  pronouncing 
in  a  different  way  the  same  word).  Fearful  of  the 
Egyptian,  Abram  declares  that  Sarah  is  his  sister, 
not  his  wife.  So  Pharaoh  took  her  for  his  harem 
—  the  bondage  of  Israel  in  a  new  form,  but  a  bond- 
age which  resulted  also  in  the  prosperity  of  Israel, 
precisely  as  in  the  stories  of  Jacob  and  Joseph. 
In  comparison  with  the  barren  lands  from  which 
they  came  the  Israelites  were  wealthy  in  Egypt, 
and  so  Abraham  had  there  abundance  of  sheep  and 
oxen,  he-asses  and  men  and  maid  servants,  and  she- 
asses  and    camels.     The    deliverance    from    Egpyt, 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel 


I J I 


with  wliich  wc  arc  so  familiar  in  a  more  directly 
historical  form  in  the  story  of  Moses  in  the  Book  of 
Exodus,  is  also  pictured  in  Abraham's  story.  Yah- 
awch  plagued  Pharaoh  and  his  house  with  great 
plagues,  and  so  Pharaoh  commanded  his  men  con- 
cerning Abraham,  and  he  sent  him  away  and  his 
wife  and  all  that  he  had. 

A  confirmation  of  the  meaning  suggested  for  this 
story  —  that  it  is  a  picture  of  historic  conditions  in 
Israel  in  the  form  of  a  personal  narrative  of  Abra- 
ham —  you  will  find  in  the  account  of  the  relation  of 
Abraham  with  the  Philistines,  in  the  twentieth 
chapter  of  Genesis.  Historicall)-,  any  relation 
between  the  Philistines  and  Abraham  would  seem 
to  be  an  anachronism.  If  we  connect  Abraham  with 
the  period  represented  in  the  14th  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis, he  must  have  lived  in  the  23rd  century  B,  C. 
But  the  Philistines  came  into  Palestine  at  about  the 
same  time  that  Israel  did.  As  I  have  pointed  out 
in  a  previous  lecture,  the  Philistine  invasion  was 
part  of  that  great  movement  of  nations  which 
resulted  from  pressure  downward  by  the  barbarian 
hordes  of  the  north,  owing  to  some  disturbances  in 
the  mysterious  uncivilized  belt  which  lay  beyond 
the  verge  of  the  civilized  world  of  that  day.  Wc 
do  not  know  anything  about  the  Philistines  earlier 
than  approximately   the  13th    century    B.C.,  when 


122  Early  Hebrew  Story 

they  descended  from  Crete  or  Asia  Minor  or  both. 
Here  we  have  Abraham  who,  according  to  the  14th 
chapter  of  Genesis,  should  have  Hved  about  the 
23rd  century  B.  C,  in  contact  with  the  Philistines, 
who  appear  in  Palestine  a  thousand  years  later, 
about  the  13th  century  B.  C. 

The  instant  you  understand  that  you  are  dealing 
with  the  history  of  a  race  and  its  vicissitudes  under 
the  name  of  a  man,  the  anachronism  disappears. 
Abraham,  according  to  this  20th  chapter,  being  in 
contact  with  the  Philistines  (here,  by  the  way,  you 
have  Abraham,  not  Abram,  and  Sarah,  not  Sarai), 
does  precisely  what  he  is  reported  to  have  done  in 
the  case  of  the  Egyptians.  He  tells  Abimelech, 
king  of  Gerar,  that  Sarah  is  his  sister,  not  his  wife, 
and  so  Abimelech,  king  of  Gerar,  sent  and  took 
Sarah.  Then  Yahaweh  afflicted  Abimelech  and  all 
his  house,  producing  barrenness  throughout  the  land, 
which  was  healed  only  when  Abimelech  took  sheep 
and  oxen  and  men  servants  and  women  servants  and 
gave  them  to  Abraham,  and  restored  to  him  Sarah, 
his  wife. 

Next  to  the  oppression  in  Egypt,  the  historic 
event  which  made  the  greatest  impression  on  Israel 
was  the  oppression  of  the  Philistines  in  the  struggle 
for  the  possession  of  the  land  between  the  two  peo- 
ples.    Coming  in    about   the    same   time,  the   one 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  of  Israel  '-3 

from  the  cast,  the  other  from  the  west,  the  Philis- 
tines, who  were  already  a  civilized  and  organized 
people,  were  at  first  victorious.  The  Israelites 
were  conquered.  Temporary  victories  and  tempo- 
rary deliverances  there  were  in  the  time  of  Saul  and, 
before  his  time,  in  the  time  of  the  Judges,  but  they 
were  only  temporary  victories.  The  Philistines 
pressed  on  and  on  and  Israel  was  oppressed  by 
them  until  the  great  deliverer,  David,  arose.  You 
have  the  stories  of  the  oppression  by  the  Egyptians 
and  by  the  Philistines  told  under  precisely  the 
same  picture,  and  the  last  named  story  brings  us 
to  that  limit  beyond  which  little  or  nothing  in  this 
early  folklore  of  Israel  descends,  the  time  of  David. 
This  latter  storj-,  the  story  of  Abraham's  con- 
tact with  the  Philistines  in  the  20th  chapter,  js^told 
in  a  double  form.  We  have  two  narratives  com- 
bined in  one.  There  is  a  Yahawistic  narrative,  that 
is,  a  narrative  in  which  the  name  Yahaweh  is  used 
for  the  divinity  and  which,  as  I  have  said  in  a  pre- 
vious lecture,  represents  more  particularly  the  folk- 
lore and  legends  of  the  so_uth,  and  there  is  a  simi- 
lar story  of  Philistine  oppression  and  deliverance 
from  the  Philistine  yoke  told  in  an  FJohistic  narra- 
tive, that  narrative  which  uses  Elohim  as  the  name 
of  the  divinity  and  which  belongs  rather  to  the 
north.     But    further,  in   the    Elohistic   narrative,  in 


124  Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  26th  chapter  of  Genesis,  you  have  this  same 
story  precisely  told  about  Isaac.  In  other  words, 
these  cycles  of  legends  which  gathered  around 
Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  Avere  originally  inde- 
pendent one  of  another,  and  each  one  was  made 
the  vehicle  of  the  whole  story  of  Israel. 

It  is  from  this  fact,  that  each  of  these  stories  was 
originally  independent  of  the  other,  that  there 
resulted  both  the  narration  of  the  same  episode 
about  two  patriarchs,  as  in  the  instance  just  quoted, 
and  also  the  connection  of  a  patriarch  with  more 
than  one  place  and  region.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  Abraham,  regularly  connected  with  the  region 
about  Hebron,  appears  also  in  the  Yahawistic  narra- 
tive in  some  connection  with  "  the  oak  of  Moreh," 
at  Shechem  (Gen.  XII,  6),  as  building  an  altar  by 
Bethel  (Gen.  XII,  8),  or  as  making  a  covenant  at 
Beersheba  (XXI,  32).  We  find  the  same  thing  to- 
day. The  same  story  is  told  of  different  saints ;  or 
a  saint  local  in  one  place  is  transferred  by  his  wor- 
shippers to  other  localities,  sacred  according  to  other 
traditions  to  some  other  saint.  Especially  great 
saints,  like  St.  George,  tend  to  dominate  whole 
regions,  often  appropriating  the  shrines  and  tradi- 
tions of  other  saints  in  addition  to  their  own.  Fur- 
ther, especially  where  a  saint  has  assumed  such  a 
controlling  and  dominant  influence,  people  of  another 


Patriarchs  and  Shrines  ol   Israel  '-5 

race  and  religion  coming  into  his  sphere  of  influence, 
if,  at  least,  approximately  in  the  same  grade  of  cul- 
ture, will  adopt  this  saint  in  addition  to  or  in  place 
of  their  own  cult.     This  is  the  reason  why  the  Mos- 
Ilmiis  of  Syria  have  adopted  the  cult  of  the  Christian, 
or  rather  pre-Christian  St.  George. 
^  Similarly  the  Israelite,  taking  over  the  Canaanite    I 
shrines  with  their  heroes  or  divinities,  who  were  the     « 
ancestors  of  the  people  of  those  regions,  from  whom 
they  named  themselves  and  from  whom,  in  the  case 
of  Jacob,  the  land  itself  was  named,  became  in  their 
turn  not  merely  worshippers  at  those  shrines,  but 
also  descendants  of  those  ancestors.     The  Israelites 
of  a  given  locality  connecte3  themselves  with  the  \^ 
shrine  of  that  localit\-,  but  in  doing  this  they  did  not 
lose  consciousness  of  the  heroes  and  heroic  events 
of  their  own  past.     Their  traditions  were  mingled 
with  the  traditions  and  legends  of  the  shrine  which  , 
they  had  now  adopted  as  their  own,  and  so  long  as 
those  traditions  and  legends  were  passed  down  by 
word  of  mouth  and  not  by  writing,  these  legends 
were  constantly  growing  and  changing,  representing 
new  heroic  events  and   in  their  coloring  the  condi- 
tions of  a  new  time,  so  that  from  the  events  narra- 
ted and  the  coloring  given  to  the  narrative  we  are 
often  able  to  say,  "  at  such  and  such  a  date  this 
ceased    to    be    a  living  story  in   the  mouth  of  the 
people  and  assumed  written  form." 


126  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Before  that  final  change  came,  the  substitu- 
tion of  the  written  story  for  the  oral  tradition,  there 
was  developed  in  Israel  a  consciousness  of  its  one- 
ness. Lost  for  a  time  in  the  period  following  Moses 
and  Joshua  and  the  disintegration  of  the  conquest, 
this  was  revived  and  strengthened  by  the  Philistine 
struggles.  This  unification  of  the  people  led  to  the 
unification  of  these  legends.  Abraham  and  Isaac, 
Jacob  and  Joseph,  were  connected  with  one  another 
in  a  genealogical  scheme.  This  is  parallel  with  the 
joint  political  and  mythological  unification  which 
took  place  under  somewhat  similar  conditions  in 
Egypt  and  Babylonia,  or  even,  to  some  extent,  in 
Greece,  determining  the  relationships  ascribed  to  the 
different  gods  and  even  to  the  different  cities  one 
with  another.  We  know  that  in  Babylonia  and 
In  Egypt  the  gods  which  appear  in  later  times  con- 
nected one  with  another  in  a  system  of  kinship  were 
originally  the  independent  and  separate  gods  of 
various  localities,  and  that  contact  or  combination 
between  the  localities  with  which  these  gods  were 
originally  connected  brought  about  the  relationship 
of  the  gods  which  is  set  forth  in  the  later  mythologies. 
And  this  relationship  of  the  gods  to  one  another 
expresses  oftentimes  the  relation  in  antiquity  or 
in  importance  of  the  cities  one  to  another.  For 
instance,  the  statement  that  Sin,  the  god  of  Ur,  was 


Patriarclis  and  Shrines  of  Israel  ^-7 

the  son  of  Enlil,  the  god  of  Nippur,  corresponds 
with  what  we  know  as  to  the  relation  of  those  cities 
and  shrines  in  the  earliest  antiquity.  Nippur  was 
the  great  ancient  slirinc  ;  the  importance  of  Ur  was 
later.  In  the  same  way  Ea,  the  god  of  Eridu,  has 
as  his  son  Marduk,  who  became  the  great  god  of 
Habylon. 

Again,  in  Babylonia  the  gods  of  the  earlier  Sume- 
rian  inhabitants  became  the  ancestors  and  parents 
of  the  gods  of  the  later  Semitic  Babylonians.  Sim- 
ilar conditions  we  find  in  Egypt.  Everyone  is  fam- 
iliar with  the  same  phenomena  in  Greek  mythology. 
We  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  somewhat  the  same 
conditions  existing  in  Palestine.  That,  in  adopt- 
ing as  their  own  ancestors  the  mythical  eponymous 
forms  worshipped  by  the  previous  inhabitants  and 
regarded  by  them  as  their  ancestors,  the  Israelites 
did  not  also  adopt  their  divine  character  and  build 
not  merely  a  scheme  of  the  genealogy  of  the  race, 
but  also  a  mythological  system  in  which  these 
eponymous  ancestors  were  gods  and  not  men,  was 
due  to  influences  which  I  shall  discuss  in  a  future 
lecture. 


LECTURE   IV 

SURVIVALS LEGENDARY  AND  MYTHICAL 

IN  the  last  lecture  I  endeavored  to  show  that  the 
stories  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  and,  to  some 
extent  Joseph,  as  they  have  come  down  to  us,  had 
their  origin  in  the  sanctuary  myths,  legends  and 
traditions  of  Hebron,  Beersheba,  Bethel  and  She- 
chem,  and  that  into  these  old  pre-Israelitic  myths 
and  legends  were  woven  threads  of  Hebrew  story, 
so  that  the  ancestral  heroes,  gods  or  demigods  of 
the  country  of  which  Israel  took  possession  were 
adopted  by  Israel,  and  ultimately  became  its  ances- 
tors, the  patriarchs,  whose  forms  were  clothed  with 
the  traditions  of  Israel's  history,  Israel's  religious 
struggles,  Israel's  thoughts  and  convictions.  Their 
stories  became  the  vehicle,  not  only  through  which 
Israel's  history  was  narrated,  but  also  by  which  a 
real  religious  teaching  was  conveyed ;  and  so  you 
find,  surviving  under  the  form  of  stories  told  about 
this  patriarch  or  that,  recollections  of  religious 
struggles,  of  the  growth  or  abolition  of  ritual  prac- 
tices, and  the  like. 


Sur\i\als — Legendary,  Mythical   '-9 

In  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  while  here  and 
there  a  consciousness  of  the  original  religious, 
racial  or  tribal  nature  of  the  heroes  of  these  stories 
is  manifest  in  general  they  have  been  generously 
clothed  with  personal  traits  by  successive  genera- 
tions of  narrators,  striking  episodes  have  been 
introduced  into  their  stories  and  even  romances 
which  have  no  inherent  connection  with  the  original 
legends.  Of  all  the  stories,  that  of  Isaac  is  most 
shadowy  and  impersonal,  but  there  is  connected, 
partly  with  his  story  and  partly  with  that  of  Abra- 
ham, a  very  beautiful  episode  of  a  personal  form, 
told  with  consummate  art,  —  the  wooing  and  win- 
ning of  Rebekah.  There  is  in  Abraham's  story  less 
of  the  episodical  and  romantic  and  more  of  the 
racial  and  legendary  element  than  in  the  narratives 
of  Jacob  and  Joseph,  but  there  are,  nevertheless, 
features  of  a  purely  romantic  character,  for  which 
we  are  to  seek  no  other  meaning  than  the  fancy  of 
the  story-teller,  his  desire  to  clothe  his  theme  with 
wonder  and  with  charm,  or  to  display  his  skill  and 
his  knowledge.  In  this  the  story  of  Abraham  dif- 
fers in  no  essential  degree  from  the  tribal  stories  of 
Arab  eponyms,  the  epic  tales  and  folklore  legends 
of  Greece  and  Egypt,  or  our  own  Germanic  and 
Celtic  kinsfolk  and  ancestors. 

Eponymous  and  mythical  figures  attract  to  them- 


ijo  Early  Hebrew  Story 

selves  stories  of  actual  episodes  and  events,  they 
assume  the  character  and  form  of  real  persons,  or 
become  ideal  expressions  of  the  customs,  thoughts, 
and  aspirations  of  the  people  among  whom  they 
are  told,  or  of  some  gifted  narrator  or  narrators,  who 
express  in  them  their  own  stronger  personality  or 
loftier  conceptions.  The  legends  of  Christian 
saints  show  the  same  characteristics,  and  the  same 
saint  in  two  different  localities  may  even  possess 
entirely  different  characters,  different  attributes  and 
different  histories.  The  difference  is  due  to  the 
different  history  and  environment  of  the  people  of 
the  localities  in  which  the  saint  is  worshipped,  or  to 
the  different  character  and  genius  of  the  makers  of 
the  stories.  Two  saints  among  the  same  people 
and  in  the  same  locality  may  differ  greatly  in  char- 
acter, owing  to  the  sources  from  which  their  stories 
are  derived,  each  being,  nevertheless,  a  character- 
istic expression  of  the  people  among  whom  they 
both  originated.  Similarly  in  the  stories  of  Abra- 
ham and  Jacob,  even  as  they  were  finally  brought  to- 
gether in  the  early  Judaean  and  Israelite  histories, 
there  is  evidence  of  the  combination  of  material 
originally  from  different  sources,  and  representing 
different  ideas.  Between  the  characters  of  the 
heroes  of  the  two  cycles  of  legends  there  is  a  strik- 
ing difference.     Abraham  is  of  a  singularly  exalted 


Sur\i\als      Lcgciuliiry,  Mythical    '3' 

and  beautiful  character,  Jacob,  on  the  other  liaiul, 
is  a  wily  Ulysses,  shrewd,  pious,  cunninc^.  Each 
is  a  type  of  the  Hebrew,  as  we  actually  find  him  in 
history,  and  may  be  said  to  be  his  portraiture  of 
himself,  his  thoughts  and  hopes.  Neither  is  com- 
plete. Each  represents  a  stratum  of  thought. 
How  it  happened  that  this  thought  attached  itself 
to  this  name,  that  to  the  other,  we  cannot  say  ;  but 
the  process  once  begun  tended  to  continue  and 
complete  itself. 

The  story  of  Jacob  has  less  of  the  racial  and 
legendary  element  than  that  of  Abraham,  and  more 
of  the  episodical  and  personal.  Particularly  it  is 
characterized  by  its  wit  and  its  humorous  enjoy- 
ment of  JaGob's  tricks.  Clearly  the  original  narra- 
tors and  their  auditors  enjoyed  hugely  the  fun  at 
Esau's  expense.  It  is  the  wit  of  the  more  sophisti- 
cated, tamer  people,  at  the  expense  of  the  bar- 
barous neighbor  of  whom  at  the  same  time  he  is 
half  afraid  ;  the  relation,  for  example,  of  the  lowland 
Scot  to  the  Highlander  in  the  days  which  Sir 
Walter  Scott  has  clothed  with  such  glamor.  The 
Israelite  laughs  at  the  shaggy,  hairy,  uncouth 
Edomites,  as  rough  and  ragged  as  the  goats  of  their 
own  wild  land.  Esau  must  have  borrowed  the 
color  of  his  skin  from  the  rocks  of  his  country,  and 
his  country  is  called    Edom   because  it   is  red.     In 


V 


132  Early  Hebrew  Story 

these  witticisms  one  sees  before  him  just  the  type 
of  wild  Edomite  which  Israel  held  up  to  laughter  as 
Esau.  The  open  shirt  displays  a  breast  so  hairy 
that  it  looks  like  a  goat's  beard  hanging  down. 
The  hairy  legs  below  the  short  shirt  might  pass  for 
a  satyr's  limbs.  The  hair  of  the  head  is  unkempt 
and  matted  and  hangs  down  about  the  face,  which 
itself  is  tanned  and  burned  to  a  dry  redness  by  the 
sun.  It  is  a  type  which  one  finds  today  in  that 
region,  and  which  the  town  Arab  —  for  that  was 
what  Israel  had  become  —  naturally  laughs  at  and 
compares  with  a  goat.  One  can  almost  see  a  group 
of  Israelites  sitting  about  the  fire  in  a  hut  on  a 
winter  night,  or  out  in  front  of  it  on  a  summer  even- 
ing, listening  with  shouts  of  laughter  to  the  narra- 
tor who  tells  the  tale  of  the  way  in  which  Israel,  by 
the  advice  of  his  cunning  mother,  Rebekah,  deceives 
the  old,  decrepit,  blear-eyed  Isaac  by  covering  him- 
self with  goat  skins  so  as  to  represent  the  hairy 
Esau. 

There  is  the  same  sort  of  wit  and  apt  characteriza- 
tion of  personal  appearance  and  tribal  characteristics 
in  the  description  of  the  way  in  which  Esau,  over- 
reached by  Jacob,  sells  his  birthright  for  a  mess  of 
pottage.  It  is  a  picture  of  that  same  childish  im- 
providence of  savage  nature  of  which  as  displayed 
by  the  red  Indians  our  ancestors  told  equally  merry 


Survivals      Legendary,  Mytliical    ^33 

talcs.  The  Indian  savage  was  ready  to  sell 
his  birthright  for  some  foolish  gewgaw,  some  useless 
weapon  or  a  bottle  of  rum.  So  Esau  sells  his 
birthright  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  immediate 
desire.  Hungry,  to  fill  his  belly,  he  sells  the  whole 
future.  One  might  fancy,  as  he  reads  the  story  of 
the  dealings  of  Jacob  with  Esau,  that  he  is  reading 
in  mystical  form  the  story  of  the  dealing  of  the 
town  Jew  in  Russia  with  the  stupid,  blundering, 
brutal  Russian  JSIonjik.  It  is  a  wonderful  picture 
of  the  unchanging  Israel  dealing  with  his  stronger 
but  less  cunning  brethren  in  all  times  and  all  lands. 
The  same  clement  of  humor  shows  itself  in  the 
story  of  the  dealings  of  Jacob  and  Laban,  and  as  in 
the  story  of  the  dealings  of  Jacob  and  Esau  we 
have  a  reflection  of  the  race  rivalry  and  race  con- 
tests of  the  Israelite  and  the  Edomite,  so  in  the 
story  of  Jacob  and  Laban  we  have  a  reflection  of 
the  rivalries,  bickerings  and  conflicts  of  neighboring 
Israelites  and  Aranueans.  ^lere  again  Jacob  over- 
reaches his  rival  by  cunning  tricks,  as  of  the  ring- 
streaked  wands,  which  caused  the  ewes  to  give  birth 
to  mottled  sheep,  or  the  theft  of  the  gods  of  the 
Aramaeans  and  their  concealment  by  Rachel.  There 
is  the  same  glorification  of  cunning  as  over  against 
strength  and  power,  and  the  same  touch  of  humor. 
At  places  the  story  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  trun- 


134         Early    Hebrew   Story 

cated  torm,  so  that  the  jest  is  not  quite  clear,  but 
enough  remains  to  show  us  that  it  must  once  have 
been  a  very  merry  tale  ;  —  the  story  of  the  way  in 
which  Israel  overreached  Aram.  It  is  this  element 
of  wit  and  cunning  which  is  so  peculiarly  character- 
istic of  the  story  of  Jacob  in  contrast  with  that  of 
Abraham  or  Joseph,  and  which  gives  Jacob  a  dis- 
tinctive personal  character  so  different  from  that  of 
the  other  patriarchs.  At  the  end  of  the  story  of 
Jacob  and  Laban  the  race  element  in  the  legend 
makes  itself  felt  in  another  way,  in  the  mention  of 
the  dividing  line  that  was  drawn  in  Gilead  between 
Israelite  and  Aramaean — a  boundary  line  which  had 
ceased  to  be  a  boundary  line  in  the  time  of  King 
Ahab,  when  the  Aramaeans  were  threatening  to 
overrun  the  whole  of  the  land  of  Israel. 

The  story  of  Joseph  contains  more  than  any  of 
the  others  of  the  romantic  element.  That  there  is 
a  sanctuary  legend  or  a  sanctuary  element  behind 
the  story,  the  identification  of  the  country  or  the 
people  formerly  inhabiting  the  country  about  She- 
chem  as  Joseph  or  Joseph-el  in  the  pre-Israelite 
period,  and  the  existence  in  that  neighborhood  in 
the  Israelite  period  of  a  tomb,  known  as  the  tomb 
of  Joseph,  make  plain  ;  but  this  element  plays  a 
much  smaller  part  in  the  story  of  Joseph  than  it  does 
in  that  of  any  of  the  other  patriarchs.     In  the  story 


Siir\i\als       Legendary,  Mythical    '35 

as  \vc  liavc  it,  tlicro  is  evidence  of  composition  and 
growth.  It  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  composite 
narrative,  derived  from  the  Yahawistic  and  Elohis- 
tic  narrators.  We  cannot  at  all  points  separate  the 
story  completely  into  its  component  parts,  but  only 
enough  to  show  that  there  are  such  component 
parts.  In  the  Elohistic  story  it  was  Reuben,  the 
eldest  brother,  who  played  the  part  of  protector 
and  friend  to  Joseph,  and  who  vouched  to  his 
father  for  Benjamin  when,  for  the  second  time,  the 
brethren  went  down  into  Egypt.  In  the  Juda^an 
story  it  is  Judah  who  plays  the  same  part.  ^ 

We  have,  in  the  story  of  Joseph,  pictures  of  a  new 
part  of  the  land,  almost  unknown  to  the  stories  of  Ja- 
cob, Isaac  and  Abraham.  It  is  in  Dothan  that  the 
brethren  feed  their  flocks  and  thither  Joseph  goes 
to  find  them.  There  he  is  cast  into  the  pit  and  sold 
to  the  Ishmaelites.  Evidently  when  this  story  took 
shape  Israel  was  spreading  northward,  assimilating 
the  country  in  the  neighborhood  of  Shcchem  and 
beyond.  This  part  of  the  story  is  later  in  prin- 
ciple than  the  stories  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob, 
which  deal  with  the  country  southward,  and  if  the 
representation  of  the  conquest  of  the  land  which  I 
gave  in  the  second  lecture  be  correct,  this  is  pre- 
cisely what  we  should  expect.  The  Joseph  land 
was  occupied  at  a  later  period   than  the  land  about 


13^  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Bethel  or  the  land  about  Hebron,  and  of  necessity 
the  Israelite  traditions  of  the  Shechem  region  are 
later  than  those  of  the  territories  of  Bethel  and  He- 
bron. Possibly,  too,  there  is  a  later  element  in  the 
I  long-sleeved  tunic,  so  infelicitously  translated  in 
our  King  James'  version  "  the  coat  of  many  colors," 
which  Jacob  gives  to  his  favorite  son.  In  contrast 
with  his  less  favored  brethren,  Joseph  is  represented 
to  be  the  townsman  of  higher  degree.  They  are 
the  herdsmen,  the  peasants.  One  seems  to  find  in 
this  an  echo  of  the  wealth,  the  prosperity  and  the 
culture  of  the  Joseph  tribes  in  contrast  with  the 
simpler  condition  of  their  brethren,  whose  lot  had 
fallen  in  a  less  favored  region. 

I  have  already,  in  the  preceding  lecture,  called 
attention  to  the  meaning  of  the  Egyptian  element 
in  the  story  of  Joseph,  and  the  historic  background 
of  that  element. 

In  connecting  the  stories  of  Abraham,  Isaac, 
Jacob  and  Joseph  with  Hebron,  Beersheba,  Bethel 
and  Shechem  respectively,  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  the  patriarchs  were  originally  localized  only  or 
absolutely  at  those  shrines,  but  rather  that  those 
were  the  headquarters,  as  it  were,  of  the  region 
which  connected  itself  with  or  worshipped  these 
respective  patriarchs  ;  but,  as  I  have  endeavored  to 
show,    the  patriarchs   might   and    did   stretch    out 


Siir\i\als      Legendary,  Mytliical    '37 

beyond  tlicir  own  regions,  precisely  as  today  a  great 
saint  may  be  reverenced  over  a  large  territory,  and 
as  the  territories  of  different  saints  may  overlap. 
So  to  recur  to  a  former  illustration,  while  the  most 
famous  shrine  of  St.  George  in  Syria  is  at  Kal'at  cl- 
Hosn,  yet  St.  George  can  not  be  said  to  be  localized 
at  that  sanctuary.  He  is  worshipped  all  over  Pales- 
tine and  Syria.  There  are,  however,  certain  condi- 
tions which  lead  the  explorer  to  give  to  Kal'at  el- 
Ilosn  a  special  pre-eminence  in  connection  with  his 
worship.  So  there  are  appearances  which  lead  us 
to  give  the  pre-eminence  in  connection  with  Isaac 
to  Beersheba,  of  Abraham  to  Hebron,  of  Jacob  to 
Bethel  and  of  Joseph  to  Shechem  ;  but  that  does 
not  mean  that  these  great  saints  of  antiquity,  if 
one  may  use  such  a  phrase,  were  limited  to  those 
places  only. 

It  is  my  special  object  to  show  in  this  lecture  the 
traces,  not  only  in  the  stories  of  these  patriarchs,  but 
also  in  some  of  the  other  stories  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  of  the  survivals  of  the  legendary  and 
mythical  lore  of  the  pre-Israelitic  period.  Why 
these  survivals  in  some  cases  attached  themselves 
to  one  name  and  in  some  cases  to  another  is  not 
altogether  clear. 

One  of  the  religious  practices  which  Israel  found 
in  the  land  of  Canaan  at  the  time  of  the  occupation 


138         Early    Hebrew   Story 

was  child  sacrifice.  Of  the  prevalence  of  child  sac- 
rifice among  the  Canaanites  at  a  later  period  we 
have  abundant  evidence  in  the  Prophets  and  the 
Books  of  the  Kings.  So  prevalent  and  well  es- 
tablished was  the  practice  that  Israel  was  in  con- 
stant danger,  according  to  these  sources,  of  adopting 
into  its  own  religion  this,  to  us,  peculiarly  horrible 
and  offensive  practice.  We  are  told  that  at  various 
times  the  practice  was  common  at  Jerusalem,  and  the 
valley  of  Gehenna  was  particularly  connected  with 
the  immolation  of  infants  to  Molech.  The  idea  of 
the  sacrifice  of  the  fruit  of  the  body  for  the  sin  of  the 
soul  is  one  of  the  wide-spread,  almost  fundamental 
ideas  of  fairly  primitive  man,  continuing  often  in  a 
more  refined  shape  in  a  higher  grade  of  civilization. 
So  side  by  side  with  high  and  lofty  cults  in  India 
there  lingered  on,  even  after  the  English  conquest  of 
the  country,  those  barbarous  and  cruel  cults  which 
called  for  sacrifice  of  children  or  even  of  adults.  But 
it  was  especially  in  the  Canaanite  and  Syrian  regions 
that  this  thought  of  appeasing  an  angry  deity  by  the 
sacrifice  of  human  beings  seems  to  have  become  a  pre- 
vailing doctrine. 

This  doctrine  has  left  its  impress  upon  Hebrew  law 
in  all  its  stages.  So,  underlying  the  laws  regulating 
animal  sacrifice  there  is  the  conception  of  the  conse- 
cration of  the  first  born  to  God.    All  that  openeth  the     < 


Sur\i\Lils  -  Legendary,  Mythical    '39 

womb  is  the  property  of  God.  In  tlic  Hebrew  use, 
however,  it  was  not  actually  the  first-born  child  or 
animal  which  was  of  necessity  offered  to  God,  but 
where  that  was  not  the  case  a  surrogate  must  be 
offered  in  its  stead.  So  the  first-born  of  man  was  to 
be  redeemed  with  a  sheep  or  a  goat,  and  in  the  case  of 
the  first  born  of  the  ass,  there  might  be  redemption, 
but  if  there  were  no  redemption  then  its  neck  must 
be  broken.  This  latter  practice  represents  a  form  of 
offering  to  God  by  simple  killing,  which  we  see  also  in 
the  Juirani  sacrifice,  met  with  particularly  in  connec- 
tion with  war.  A  city,  a  town  or  even  a  people  was 
declared  haratn,  devoted  to  God  :  that  is  to  say,  if 
conqucrcdTnbattle  all  living  things  contained  in  it 
must  be  put  to  death,  and  even  the  inanimate 
objects  might  not  become  the  personal  spoils  of  the 
victors.  This  slaughter  was  a  sacrifice,  a  consecra- 
tion or  devotion  to  God,  and  of  the  same  nature  was 
the  killing  of  the  first-born  of  the  ass  which  was  not 
redeemed.  The  first-born  belonged  to  God  ;  it  was 
His  right. 

Recent  archaeological  discoveries  have  given  us, 
apparently,  the  material  evidence  of  the  existence 
bf  this  practice  of  child  sacrifice  in  Canaan.  At 
Ta'anach,  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  rock-cut  altar, 
the  Austrian  explorer,  Scllin,  found  jars  containing 
the  bones  of  children,  and  only  of  children.     In  the 


HO  Early  Hebrew  Story 

enclosure  of  the  megalithic  temple  at  Gezer,  Macal- 
ister  found  similar  jars  containing,  as  at  Ta'anach, 
the  bones  only  of  children.  These  jar  burials  of 
the  bones  of  infants  in  connection  with  an  altar  or 
temple  can  be  accounted  for,  in  the  belief  of  these 
explorers,  only  on  the  supposition  that  they  were 
sacrificial  victims. 

One  of  the  most  striking  evidences  of  the  wide- 
spread conviction  among  the  Israelites  of  the 
ef^cacy  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  first-born  son,  whether 
infant  or  grown,  is  afforded  by  the  story  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  son  of  the  king  of  Moab,  in  the  third 
chapter  of  the  second  book  of  Kings.  Each  town 
or  nation  believed  in  the  existence  of  its  own 
special  god,  to  whom  it  stood  in  a  peculiar  relation. 
At  times  it  became  necessary  to  strengthen  the 
hands  of  that  god,  as  it  were,  against  the  gods  of 
hostile  nations,  who  seemed  to  be  too  strong  for 
him,  or  to  arouse  his  interest,  which  seemed  in 
some  way  to  have  been  alienated  or  diverted.  It 
was  the  wrath  of  the  divine  powers  which  brought 
disaster  in  battle,  plague,  pestilence  and,  in  general, 
any  misfortune,  upon  men.  Such  calamities  might 
be  due  to  the  wrath  of  the  god  of  the  town  or  nation 
itself.  He  might  be  offended,  because  he  had  not 
received  that  which  was  his  due.  Or  it  might  be 
that  the  god  of  that  town  or  people  was  not  able  to 


Siir\i\als      r.cgciulary,  Mythical    'P 

withstand  tlic  power  of  other  gods,  liis  adversaries. 
In  the  first  case  it  was  necessary  to  appease  an 
offended  deity  ;  in  the  second  to  find  some  means 
of  giving  new  streni^th  and  energy  to  the  na- 
tional god.  In  the  da)'s  of  Jclioram,  son  of  Aliah, 
when  the  king  of  Judah  was  a  subject  ally  of  Israel, 
and  Edom  in  its  turn  a  subject  ally  of  Judah,  Moab, 
under  its  king,  Mesha,  revolted  and  cast  off  the  yoke 
of  Israel.  The  king  of  Israel,  with  his  allies,  the  kings 
of  Judah  and  Edom,  marched  into  Moab  to  take  ven- 
geance, by  the  way  of  Judah  and  Edom,  around  the 
southern  end  of  the  Dead  Sea.  The  allies  devastated 
the  country  and  shut  up  the  king  of  Moab  in  his 
stronghold,  Kirhareseth,  the  modern  Kerak.  The 
king  of  Moab  was  sore  pressed.  As  a  last  resort, 
whether  to  appease  his  deity,  Chemosh,  or  to 
strengthen  Chemosh's  hands  against  the  gods  of  his 
adversaries,  the  kings  of  Israel,  Judah  and  Edom, 
Mesha  sacrificed  on  the  wall  of  the  city,  in  sight  of 
the  allied  hosts,  his  son  and  the  heir  to  the  throne. 
The  Israelites,  Jews  and  Edomites  who  beheld  the 
sacrifice  were  filled  with  terror,  knowing  the  mean- 
ing and  the  power  of  this  sacrifice  and  believing 
that  it  would  so  arouse  and  strengthen  the  god  of 
Moab  that  he  would  become  almost,  if  not  quite, 
irresistible.  Accordingly  the  allied  kings  were 
compelled  to  abandon  the  siege  and  withdraw  with 
their  purpose  unaccomplished. 


H2  Early  Hebrew  Story 

The  meaning  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  first-born  is, 
of  course,  clear,  and  it  is  a  meaning  which  appeals, 
in  its  principle,  even  to  this  day.  God  demands 
the  best  which  man  has  ;  that  which  is  most  pre- 
cious to  him  —  if  possible  even  more  precious  to 
him  than  himself.  Man  must  appease  God  by  giving 
Him  the  very  best  he  has  and  the  very  best  is  the 
fruit  of  his  body,  and  chief  and  highest  of  that  fruit 
is  the  first-born  son. 

Considering  the  evidence  which  we  have  in  the 
Bible  of  the  profound  impression  produced  upon  the 
Israelites  in  the  historic  period  by  the  sacrifice  of 
the  first-born,  and  the  evidence  from  the  Bible  and 
from  archaeological  sources  of  the  prevalence  of  that 
sacrifice  among  the  Canaanites,  it  would  be  strange 
if  we  should  find  in  the  stories  of  the  patriarchs, 
considering  the  way  in  which  such  stories  picture 
the  early  life  and  practices  of  the  people  that  tells 
them,  no  traces  of  child  sacrifice  and  also  of  its 
abandonment.  The  very  argument  for  the  aban- 
donment of  such  a  practice  is  presented  in  folklore, 
not  in  the  form  of  syllogisms  and  discussions,  but 
of  a  story  which  relates  the  fact.  Such  a  story  is 
woven  into  the  legends  of  Abraham  and  may  be 
regarded  as  the  protest  against  that  sacrifice  on 
the  part  of  precisely  that  highest  prophetic  or  pre- 
prophetic  element  in    Israel  which    is   represented 


Sur\i\als       Legendary,  Mythical    '43 

in  the  story  of  Abraham  in  general.  The  story 
itself,  contained  in  the  twenty-second  chapter  of 
Genesis,  is  familiar  to  all.  God  bids  Abraham 
to  take  his  only  son,  Isaac,  to  a  certain  spot 
which  He  indicates  and  offer  him  there  as  a  burnt 
offering.  The  story  assumes  that  it  was  a  nat- 
ural thing  to  do.  Abraham  accepts  it  as  a  com- 
mand which  might  be  expected  from  the  deity, 
and  travels  three  days  to  offer  up  Isaac  at  the  place 
indicated.  After  he  has  bound  him  and  placed  him 
upon  the  altar  and  is  about  to  sacrifice  him,  an 
angel  voice  calls  to  him,  telling  him  that  God  will 
absolve  him  from  the  obligation  to  sacrifice  his  only 
begotten  son,  and  he  is  shown  a  ram  which  is  to 
take  the  place  of  Isaac  as  a  sacrifice. 

This  is  clearly  an  etiological  story  and  answers  the 
question  :  why  is  it  that  wc  sacrifice  a  ram  instead  of 
the  first-born?  The  story,  according  to  the  critics, 
is  a  part  of  the  Israelite,  not  the  Juda^an,  narrative. 
With  what  locality  it  was  originally  connected  is  not 
altogether  clear.  Later  interpretation  connected  it 
with  Jerusalem.  The  name  of  the  place  given  in  the 
text  as  it  now  stands  is  Yahaweh-Yireh  (or  Jireh,  to 
substitute  for  the  Y  the  J  which  is  so  frequently 
used).  A  number  of  critics  have  made  out  of  this 
Jeruel,  substituting  for  Yahaweh  f/,  and  reversing 
the  order  of  the  parts  of  the  compound  word,  and 


144  Early  Hebrew  Story 

suppose  it  to  be  some  mountain,  possibly  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Tekoah.  But  Jeruel  is  singularly 
like  Jerusalem.  It  is,  in  fact,  Jerusalem  with  the 
god-name  cl  substituted  for  the  god-name  salem, 
and  the  location  of  Jerusalem  would  correspond  in 
general  with  the  length  of  the  journey  which  Abra- 
ham is  supposed  to  take  from  Beersheba,  at  which 
place  he  was  then  staying.  Whatever  the  locality 
with  which  it  was  originally  connected,  whether  Je- 
rusalem or  some  spot  further  southward,  it  may  be 
regarded  as  an  instance  of  what  has  been  already 
explained — the  tendency  of  local  legends  to  con- 
nect themselves  with  the  great  hero  of  legend  and 
by  that  connection  to  become  part  of  his  legend, 
and  so  the  expression  of  the  people's  thought  and 
life  in  that  legend. 

The  moral  character  of  this  story  is  a  very  high  one 
and  it  may  be  said  in  passing  that  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  Israelitic  folklore  in  general  presents  a  most 
favorable  contrast  to  the  folklore  of  other  peoples. 
It  is  not  my  intention  in  this  lecture  to  deal  with 
the  moral  value  of  the  stories  of  Genesis  or  the 
inspiration  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  and  the  early  lit- 
erature of  Israel  which  has  come  down  to  us  ;  but 
even  when  dealing  with  the  merely  historical  side, 
the  origin  of  the  legend,  its  ritual  meaning  or  the 
survivals  in  it  of  heathenism  aiitj  heathen  mythology. 


Sur\i\als — Legendary,  Mythical   M5 

one  cannot  altogether  avoid  the  moral  element.  I''or  ---; 
whatever  tiieir  source,  tiie  whole  i)oint  of  view  of 
these  Israclitic  stories  is,  from  our  standpoint,  moral 
in  contrast  with  the  similar  Greek,  or  Babylonian  or 
Egyptian  lore.  What  we  should  have  found  in  such 
lore  ascribed  to  the  caprice  of  the  gods,  to  a  blind 
fate,  or  to  some  fantastic  and  whimsical  cause,  is  in 
Israelitic  law  imbued  with  moral  purpose.  So  in  this 
story  the  moral  purpose  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  first- 
born is  achieved,  so  far  as  that  sacrifice  represents 
the  complete  surrender  of  man  to  the  will  of  God. 
Abraham  is  represented  as  perfectly  obedient.  On 
the  other  hand,  that  horror  of  human  sacrifice  which 
we  of  today  feel  and  which  seems  to  us  to  be  a  part 
of  our  better  natures  and  of  necessity,  therefore,  an 
evidence  of  the  evil  of  the  sacrifice  itself,  is  without 
words  recognized.  God  will  not  have  human  sacri- ^ 
fice,  but  substitutes  for  the  first-born  son  the  ram. 
Another  of  the  famous  and  beautiful  stories  con- 
nected with  the  name  of  Abraham  represents,  pri- 
marily, the  attempt  to  explain  certain  striking,  natu- 
ral phenomena.  Very  primitive  people  tend  to  find 
a  mythological  or  supernatural  explanation  of  pecu- 
liar natural  phenomena.  To  the  north  of  Damascus, 
on  the  road  to  Palmyra,  is  a  salt  marsh,  the  rocks  to 
the  east  of  which  arc  fantastic  in  their  shapes. 
When  I  traveled  tlirough  that  country  the  Arabs 


h6  Early  Hebrew  Story 

pointed  out  to  me  these  rocks  as  men  or  women 
turned  into  salt  by  God,  as  punishment  for  their  folly 
or  misdeeds.  In  fact  the  story  of  Lot's  wife  was  told 
to  me  with  regard  to  these  rocks,  precisely  as  in  the 
Bible  it  is  told  of  the  strange,  salty  formations  to  the 
south  of  the  Dead  Sea.  More  than  once,  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Arabs  of  the  country,  I  went  to  visit 
strangely  shaped  rocks  in  Canaan  and  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  Euphrates,  which  the  Arabs  assured  me 
were  ancient  castles  or  cities,  and  about  some  of 
which  they  told  strange  and  fantastic  tales,  but  all  of 
which  proved,  on  examination,  to  be  freaks  of  nature 
in  her  fantastic  moods.  All  over  the  world  one 
finds  strange  stories  and  tales  told  with  regard  to 
precisely  such  formations  —  stories  of  ruined  cities, 
stories  of  men  and  animals  turned  to  stone.  A 
familiar  Greek  legend,  in  some  respects  not  unlike 
the  Hebrew  legend  of  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  is  the  tale  of  Philemon  and  Baucis,  and 
the  city  which,  for  its  inhospitality,  was  over- 
whelmed by  the  gods  and  buried  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  the  lake. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable*natural  phenomena  in 
the  world  is  the  great  depression  of  the  Jordan  Val- 
ley, ending  in  the  Dead  Sea.  To  the  dweller  on  the 
hills  of  Palestine,  from  Bethel  southward,  this  is  con- 
stantly in  the  eye  and  in  the  mind.     One  cannot  as- 


Siir\i\als       Legendary,  Mythical    M7 

ccnd  to  any  height  without  looking  down  into  the 
wonderful  chasm  which  cuts  the  mountains  in  two 
and  separates  the  country  west  of  the  Jordan  from 
that  to  the  cast  by  a  great  and  almost  impassable  gulf. 
It  was  inevitable,  with  this  great  gulf  before  the  eye, 
that  the  people  of  the  Judaean  highlands  should 
build  up  stories  explanatory  of  this  phenomenon,  and 
that  those  stories  should  in  some  way  be  brought  in- 
to connection  with  the  great  heroes  of  the  legends  of 
the  land.  There  is  no  part  of  the  world's  surface  which 
is  so  far  depressed  beneath  the  sea  level  as  the  Dead  ^  J  a)- 
Sea,  and  there  is  no  such  chasm  as  that  of  the  J  or-  ^ 
dan  and  Dead  Sea  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  Weird, 
unearthl}',  it  divides  the  east  from  the  west.  As  you 
descend  from  the  plateau  of  Moab  or  the  mountains 
of  Juda:a  into  that  strange  gulf,  you  feel  a  physical 
oppression  caused  by  the  added  weiglit  of  atmos- 
phere. A  strange  effect  is  produced  upon  the  imagi- 
nation, also,  by  the  peculiar  physical  phenomena  of 
the  plain  of  the  lower  Jordan  Vallc}',  of  the  desolate 
lake  beyond,  of  the  mountains  rising  barren  and 
almost  sheer  four  thousand  feet  on  cither  side, 
an  uncanny  effect,  suggestive  of  weird  events  and 
existences.  And  consequent,  apparently,  on  this 
physical  and  mental  depression,  there  is  a  moral 
enervation.  Arab  tribes  which  have  wandered  from 
the  uplands  into  the  lower  plain,    have,  it  is  said. 


h8  Early  Hebrew  Story 

without  exception,  lost  both  their  physical  and 
moral  stamina. 

All  people  who  have  attempted  to  inhabit  the 
lower  Jordan  Valley  have  become  utterly  corrupt. 
Hebrew  story  echoes  this  fact  in  the  account  of  the 
moral  corruption  of  the  Moabites,  whom  Israel  found 
in  the  Jordan  Valley  ;  and  there  was  even  danger 
that  Israel  would  be  corrupted  by  contact  with  them, 
as  they  on  their  part  had  been  corrupted  by  the 
descent  from  the  highlands  of  the  east  into  the  Jor- 
dan Valley,  through  the  effect  of  its  climate  and  con- 
tact with  its  populations.  The  soil  of  the  valley 
itself,  like  all  alluvial  soils,  is  rich.  Vegetation  is 
abundant  wherever  there  is  water.  In  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Jericho  that  is  to  be  found  in  plenty,  and 
in  Herod's  day  Jericho  was  a  garden  famous  for 
its  richness  and  fertility.  The  land  is  equally  rich 
today,  but  the  people  of  Jericho  and  the  neighbor- 
hood are  physically  and  morally  degraded.  Inhabit- 
ing a  rich  territory,  they  are  too  lazy  or  too  ener- 
vated, according  to  all  accounts,  to  do  the  simplest 
work  necessary  to  gather  in  their  harvests.  If  all 
reports  may  be  believed,  they  live  for  little  more 
than  the  gratification  of  their  lusts. 

The  contrast  between  the  fertility  of  Jericho  and 
the  region  about  it  and  opposite  it  on  the  other  side 
of    Jordan,  and  the  utter  barrenness  of  the  coun- 


Surx  i\  als  —  Lcgciulary,  Mythical    '49 

try  a  few  miles  further  southward,  on  the  shore  of 
the  Dead  Sea,  is  one  of  the  striking  features  of  the 
situation  which,  to  the  simple,  primitive  man,  could 
find  explanation  onl}-  in  some  action  of  God  or  the 
gods,  by  which  the  one  portion  was  rendered  abso- 
lutely barren,  while  the  other  was  left  fertile.  Here 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Jericho  all  is  so  luxuriously 
rich,  so  aboundingly  fertile,  while  a  few  miles  fur- 
ther south,  on  the  shore  of  the  Dead  Sea,  there  is  a 
scene  of  utter  desolation  and  death  : — no  fish  in  the 
water,  no  bird  in  the  air,  no  tree  or  shrub  about  the 
shore,  the  mountain  sides  to  east  and  west  abso- 
lutely barren.  Skeleton  trees  that  have  floated  down 
the  Jordan  are  to  be  seen  here  and  there  resting  on 
the  surface  of  the  sea,  to  be  tossed  up  later  like  pet- 
rified fragments  on  its  shore,  adding  to  the  general 
impression  of  death  and  destruction.  Now  and 
then  pieces  of  a  pitch-like  substance  are  observed 
floating  on  the  surface,  or  are  found  on  the  beach, 
where  the  waves  have  cast  them  up.  Moreover, 
the  water  has  the  strange  propert}-,  unlike  any 
other  water  in  the  country,  of  bearing  even  a  human 
being  on  its  surface.  It  is  so  impregnated  with 
salts  that  one  cannot  drink  it,  and  after  bathing  in 
it  the  skin  pricks  and  burns  from  its  effects.  The 
sea  itself  is  most  inhospitable  to  navigation,  not 
only  because  there  are  scant  places  along  its  wild 


/ 


I50  Early  Hebrew  Story 

and  dreary  shores  at  which  a  boat  can  by  any 
possibility  land,  but  also  because  of  the  strange 
storms  and  currents  which  render  navigation  pecu- 
liarly dangerous.  At  the  southern  end  strange 
shapes  of  white  saline  rock  suggest,  even  to  the  un- 
imaginative, the  destruction  of  houses  or  cities, 
and  men  or  animals  turned  to  salt.  It  would  have 
been  a  strange  thing  if  no  traditions  had  come 
down  to  us  endeavoring  to  explain  these  pecu- 
liar phenomena,  recognizing  both  the  physical  and 
the  moral  facts  to  which  I  have  called  attention  in 
connection  with  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  lower  Jordan 
Valley. 

The  story,  as  it  has  come  down  to  us,  is  con- 
nected with  Abraham,  in  whose  immediate  locality 
the  Dead  Sea  lay.  It  is  connected,  also,  with  racial 
traditions  of  the  Moabites  and  Ammonites — the 
neighbors  who  occupied  the  other  shore  of  the 
Dead  Sea  and  the  Jordan,  and  with  whom  Israel 
came  into  contact,  often  hostile,  at  the  fords  of  the 
Jordan.  The  story  is  contained  in  the  nineteenth 
and  following  chapters  of  Genesis.  It  is  illuminated 
and  adorned  by  personal  and  romantic  elements, 
which  have  no  historical  or  distinctly  religious  or 
ritual  significance.  Of  such  a  character  is  the  fas- 
cinating oriental  picture  of  Abraham's  attempt  to 
haggle  with  God,  to  buy  from    him  the  safety  of 


Sur\i\als — Legendary,  Mythical    '5' 

Sodom  aiul  Gomorrah  in  the  same  mctliod  in  wlu'ch 
one  buys  goods  from  his  nciL;hb()r,  commencing 
with  one  price  and  cheapening  and  cheapening 
until  they  come  to  an  ultimate  agreement.  But 
this  is  so  beautifully  told  as  to  be  relieved  of  any 
gross  or  coarse  element,  and  to  be  ethically  and 
morally  not  only  inoffensive,  but  edifying  to  the 
modern  reader. 

The  cause  of  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah  is  two-fold:  the  lack  of  hospitality,  a 
deadly  sin  in  the  Orient, —  the  same  sin  which  in 
the  Greek  legend  of  Philemon  and  Baucis  brought 
about  the  destruction  of  the  city  —  and  the  immor- 
ality of  the  country.  I  have  already  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  from  time  immemorial  immorality 
seems  to  have  been  characteristic  of  the  conditions 
of  the  Jordan  Valley.  The  particular  form  of  immor-  //^ 
ality  here  mentioned  is  described  again  under  other 
circumstances  in  connection  with  the  destruction  of 
the  Benjaminites  for  the  sin  of  Gibcah,  in  the 
nineteenth  and  following  chapters  of  the  Book  of 
Judges.  It  is  a  wickedness  which  is  horribly  preva- 
lent to  this  day  in  the  East  and  in  Palestine,  and 
the  abhorrence  with  which  it  is  treated  in  the 
Hebrew  narrative  is  one  of  the  best  evidences  of 
the  essentially  elevated  and  pure  character  of 
Hebrew  religious  thought. 


152  Early  Hebrew  Story 

The  contrast  between  the  desolate  Dead  Sea  and 
its  environments  and  the  fertile  region  of  Jericho, 
is  explained  by  the  destruction  of  the  cities  of  the 
plain  by  God  for  their  wickedness,  and  the  particu- 
lar method  of  the  destruction  is  itself  suggested  by 
the  phenomena  which  are  to  be  observed  from  time 
to  time  in  that  region,  the  outbreak  of  inflammable 
gases,  and  oil  and  naphtha  eruptions.  The  con- 
nection of  Moab  and  Ammon  with  the  region  is 
expressed  in  the  further  story  of  the  escape  of  Lot, 
which  is  bound  up  with  the  legend  as  it  has  come 
down  to  us.  Here,  again,  the  purer  moral  attitude 
of  the  Israelite  finds  offense  in  what  was  evidently, 
in  its  origin,  a  story  not  of  shame  but  of  honor. 

It  must  be  understood  that,  in  the  case  of  such  a 
story  as  that  of  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  and  the  deliverance  of  Lot  and  his 
daughters,  we  can  do  little  more  than  suggest  a 
foundation  for.  the  legend.  For  the  method  in 
which  the  story  grows  and  for  its  present  details 
we  can  give  analogies  and  show  how  elsewhere,  in 
similar  manner,  stories  very  realistic  in  character 
have  grown  out  of  some  strange  physical  feature 
which  had  to  be  accounted  for  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  people.  I  have  suggested  the  reason  why 
this  story,  which  pertains  properly  not  to  Abraham, 
but  to  Lot,  should  be  connected  with  the  Abraham 


Survivals  —  Legendary,  Mythical    '53 

legend.  There  arc  incidental  features  in  the  story, 
like  the  deliverance  of  the  region  of  Zoar,  which  arc 
probably  to  be  explained  in  connection  with  the 
physical  phenomena  of  the  region  itself.  Why  was 
tiu-re  this  little  oasis  of  Zoar,  where  all  else  was 
devastation  ?  It  was  the  place  preserved  for  the 
refuge  of  Lot.  Again,  the  story  of  Lot's  dwelling 
in  a  cave  is  apparently  to  be  connected  with  a 
legend  of  the  period.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that 
an  individual  cave  of  that  region  was  pointed  out 
as  the  cave  of  Lot.  It  is,  of  course,  possible  that 
historical  events  and  incidents  are  woven  in  with 
this  story,  as  in  the  case  of  similar  legendary 
material  elsewhere.  Scientists  have  called  atten- 
tion to  the  gas  explosions,  the  naphtha  eruptions 
and  the  consequent  conflagrations  of  a  minor  char- 
acter which  might  be  expected  in  a  region  of  such 
a  physical  conformation  as  the  Dead  Sea  country, 
and  precisely  as  in  the  case  of  the  Babylonian  flood 
legend  the  color  and  possibly  largely  the  conception 
of  the  story  arc  due  to  the  actual  fact  of  local  floods, 
so  the  coloring  of  this  story  and  even  the  suggestion 
of  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  may  be 
due  to  the  fact  of  actual  explosions  and  conflagra- 
tions of  a  volcanic  character  in  the  lower  Jurdanic 
and  Dead  Sea  region. 

This  was  not  the  only  story  which  connected  itself 


^54  Early  Hebrew  Story 

with  the  Dead  Sea  region  and  the  destruction  of 
cities  in  that  neighborhood,  apparently  for  their 
wickedness.  About  the  middle  of  the  eighth  cen- 
tury B.C.  we  find  Hosea  referring  to  the  destruction 
of  Admah  and  Zeboim  (XI,  8).  Indeed  it  was  to 
be  supposed  that  such  conditions  as  those  existing 
in  the  Dead  Sea  region  would  give  rise  to  various 
legends.  We  shall  see  that  the  story  of  Eden 
appeared  in  more  than  one  form  in  Jewish  tradition, 
and  that  besides  the  cosmogonies  which  we  have  in 
the  Book  of  Genesis  there  were  current  among  the 
Jews  other  cosmogonies  and  cosmogonic  legends. 
The  material  in  our  Book  of  Genesis  represents  only 
a  part  of  the  great  mass  of  early  tradition  and  story 
current  among  the  Hebrews. 

Attention  has  already  been  called  in  a  previous 
lecture  to  the  relation  of  Moab  and  Ammon  to  Lot. 
They  are  descendants  of  Lot,  in  the  sense  that  they 
occupied  the  country  of  Lot  or  Lotan,  the  primitive 
name  of  the  region  east  of  the  Dead  Sea,  as  we 
learn  from  the  Egyptian  inscriptions.  Very  close 
relation  to  Israel  is  recognized  in  this  story,  which 
makes  Lot  a  kinsman  of  Abraham,  and  still  more, 
perhaps,  in  the  fact  that  the  local  legend  of  the  birth 
of  those  two  nations  has  been  woven  into  the  Hebrew 
story  of  Abraham.  In  the  primitive  form  of  the 
legend  of  the  origin  of  Moab  and  Ammon,  it  would 


Siir\i\als      LcgcMidary,  Mythical    '55 

secni  as  thoui^h  tlic  story  of  the  destruction  which 
befell  the  cities  of  tlie  plain  must  have  been,  like 
the  story  of  the  Flood,  understood  as  a  universal 
destruction.  Lot  and  his  two  daughters,  of  all  liv- 
ing things,  escaped.  Now,  there  was  no  greater 
shame  or  disgrace  that  could  befall  man  or  woman 
tTian  to  die  childless.  To  avert  such  a  calamity  any 
means  of  any  sort  might  be  taken.  This  same  con- 
ception shows  itself  here  and  there  in  stories  of 
other  primitive  peoples,  as,  for  example,  in  the  Ger- 
manic ]Volsu)igcnlii'd.  What  would  be  shameful 
under  other  circumstances  is  heroic  under  such  con- 
ditions. There  is  also  a  further  conception  which 
shows  itself  perhaps  most  characteristically  in  the 
Egyptian  royal  marriages,  the  idea  of  purity  of 
blood.     In  Egyptian  royal  use  purity  of  blood  was 

\  essential,  and  was  reckoned  especially  on  the 
woman's  side.  A  brother  might  marry  his  sister, 
and,  in  fact,  must  do  so  in  order  to  transmit  the 
blood  of  the  race  pure  and  undefiled.  It  was  a 
common  boast  of  ancient  races  or  nations  that  their 
blood  was  pure,  and  to  preserve   that  purity  inter- 

-^narriage  with  other  peoples  was  forbidden. 

Both  these  facts  find  expression  in  the  story  of  the 
birth  of  Moab  and  Amnion  from  Lot  as  father  and  his 
two  daughters  as  mothers  of  the  two  nations  respec- 
tively, and  the  names  of  the  nations  themselves  are 


156  Early  Hebrew  Story 

here  explained  by  those  curious  etymologies  which 
represented  so  much  reality  to  the  ancient  mind  and 
which  are  so  constantly  cited  in  the  Old  Testament 
as  evidence  of  the  facts  of  the  legend  narrated. 
The  eldest  daughter  called  her  son  Moab,  born 
"  from  the  father  "  (Me-ab),  and  the  younger  daugh- 
ter called  her  son  Ben-Ammi,  "  son  of  my  kinsman," 
which,  in  sound  certainly,  comes  close  to  the  familiar 
Bene-Ammon.  This  story  was  not  originally  a 
story  of  any  shameful  deed,  nor  was  the  descent  of 
Moab  and  Ammon  from  such  an  ancestry  a  dis- 
honorable descent,  but  quite  the  contrary.  It  was 
a  claim  that  they  were  pure-blooded,  above  all  the 
people  about  them,  unmixed  with  foreign  elements, 
and  the  deeds  of  their  ancestresses,  which  gave  them 
birth,  were  deeds  of  tragic  heroism.  The  later 
Israelite  and  Jewish  thought,  with  its  newer  and 
higher  moral  conceptions,  came  to  regard  the  deed 
and  the  story  which  related  it  as  shameful.  Some- 
thing of  this  later  feeling  shows  itself  in  the  form 
of  the  lefvend  as  it  has  come  down  to  us  in  Genesis. 

o 

A  fuller  expression  of  that  sentiment  of  abhorrence 
we  find  in  the  occasional  references  to  this  story 
elsewhere  in  Hebrew  literature. 

In  the  matter  of  racial  relations,  the  legend  of 
Abraham  was  much  richer  than  that  of  Isaac  or 
Jacob.     There  is  one  story,  or  perhaps  better  gene- 


Sunnv^als  —  Legendary,  Mylhieal    '57 

alogy  (Gen.  XI,  28,  ff.,  XV,  7)  connecting  Abra- 
ham witli  Tcrah,  and  his  city  Ilaran,  and  ultimately 
with  Ui'  of  the  Chaldees.  This  represents  a  histori- 
cal fact,  of  a  connection  witli  Ilaran  and  Ur,  but 
that  connection  is  rather  a  connection  of  religion 
and  civilization  than  a  real  connection  of  race. 
Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  fact  that 
Babylonian  civihzation  dominated  Palestine  from  a 
ve?y  early  period  onward  until  the  close  of  the  15th 
century  B.  C,  and  even  beyond.  It  left  its  traces  in 
the  names  and  worship  of  various  gods.  It  gave 
the  Canaanites  their  mythology  and  their  cosmog- 
ony, which  became  in  turn  the  foundation  of  the 
Hebrew  cosmogony.  As  a  comparison  of  the 
recently  discovered  Laws  of  Hammurabi  with 
Hebrew  laws  shows,  Babylonia  influenced  the  legis- 
lation of  Palestine  from  that  early  period  onward. 
It  might  in  fact  well  be  said  that  Palestine  was  a 
descendant  of  Babylonia,  not  in  the  literal  sense  of 
descent  of  blood,  but  in  the  equally  real  sense  of 
descent  of  thought,  religion  and  civilization,  and  this 
is  precisely  what  is  represented  in  this  story  of  the 
descent  of  Abraham  Irom  Haran,  who  came  out  of 
Ur  of  the  Ciialdees.  Ilaran  was  the  city  of  Meso- 
potamia famous  for  its  worship  of  the  god  Sin,  and 
through  its  cult  of  that  divinity  standing  in  pecu- 
liarly close  relations  to  Ur  in  Babylonia.     Babylo- 


158  Early  Hebrew  Story 

nian  and  Assyrian  inscriptions  recognize  repeatedly 
this  relationship.  Ur  and  Haran  were  the  two  great 
cities  of  the  worship  of  the  moon-god,  Sin.  Ur  was 
the  primitive  home  of  that  worship,  Haran  its  later 
rival  in  the  same  cult. 

It  is  the  Judaean  tradition  which  has  preserved 
to  us  this  connection  of  Abraham  through  Haran 
with  Ur,  the  seat  of  the  worship  of  Sin.  It  is  the 
Judsean  tradition  which  represents  Sinai,  that  is, 
the  place  of  the  God  Sin,  as  the  sacred  mountain 
of  the  Israelites,  in  which  God  revealed  Himself 
and  from  which  He  gave  the  law.  It  is  particularly 
with  this  region  of  the  south  that  Abrabram  is  con- 
nected in  the  stories  of  Genesis,  and  in  the  Judaean 
narrative  he  is  represented  as  the  parent  of  the 
tribes  which  inhabit  the  territory  about  Sinai.  His 
genealogy,  as  given  here,  establishes  a  peculiar  con- 
nection with  the  two  great  shrines  of  the  moon-god 
in  Mesopotamia  and  Babylonia;  and  in  the  Judaean 
narrative  he  stands  in  a  similar  relation  to  what 
was  evidently  in  primitive  times  a  famous  seat  of 
the  same  worship  south  of  Palestine. 

There  are  further  indications  of  a  primitive  con- 
nection with  the  worship  of  the  moon  in  the  names 
which  occur  in  this  genealogy.  The  sons  of  Terah 
are  Abraham,  Nahor  and  Haran.  Haran,  as  stated, 
is  the  famous  city  of  that  name  in  Mesopotamia, 


V 

Sur\i\  Ills  —  Legendary,  Mytliiciil    '59 

the  scat  of  the  worshii)  of  tiic  god  Sin.  Nahor  and 
Abrani  are  brought  into  connection  with  that  same 
worshii^  in  the  names  of  tlicir  wives,  Milkah  ami 
Sarah,  which  arc  titles  of  the  goddess  who  was 
associated  with  Sin  at  Ilaran,  and  presumably,  also, 
at  Ur.  We  have  here  a  survival  of  a  mythological 
connection,  the  fact  of  wliich  is  preserved  in  this 
genealog}'  and  these  names,  but  the  meaning  of 
which  had  been  altogether  lost  at  a  very  early 
period,  so  that  the  story  was  told  among  the 
Hebrews  without  offense,  precisely  as,  at  a  later  date, 
the  story  of  Mordecai  and  Esther  became,  without 
offense  to  Jewish  monotheism,  a  part  of  the  reli- 
gious legend  and  belief  of  Judaism,  j  Sinai  ceased  to 
be  the  place  where  Sin  was  worshipped  ;  it  became 
the  dwelling  place  of  Yahaweh.  The  tradition  of 
the  connection  of  the  worship  at  Sinai  with  tliat  of 
Ilaran  and  Ur  survived  as  the  tradition  of  a  lineal 
descent  of  Abraham  from  ancestors  who  had  mi- 
grated from  Ur  to  Haran,  whence  he  himself 
migrated  to  Palestine  ;  and  the  goddess  with  whom 
he  was  associated  in  tlie  old  heathen  legend,  an 
indication  of  his  relation  to  the  Sin  cult,  became  a 
person,  his  wife,  and  the  ancestress  of  the  Hebrew 
nation. 

There  is  another  story   in  Genesis  (XIV)  which 
brings  Abraham  into  connection  with  Babylonia,  so 


i6o 


Early    Hebrew   Story 


different  from  the  surrounding  material  in  its  main 
element  that  critics  assign  it  to  none  of  the  docu- 
ments traceable  in  the  Book  of  Genesis,  such  as  the 
Yahawist,  the  Elohist  and  the  Priest  Code,  but  set 
it  apart  by  itself.  This  episode  is  cast  in  the  time 
of  Amraphel,  king  of  Shinar.  Amraphel  has  been 
identified  with  Hammurabi,  the  famous  king  of 
Babylonia  who  drove  out  the  Elamites  and  secured 
the  hegemony,  or  rather  the  dominion  of  all  Baby- 
lonia for  Babylon,  raising  that  city  to  a  position  of 
political  and  religious  predominance,  which  it  con- 
tinued to  hold  for  many  centuries.  He  was  the 
author  or  compiler  of  a  code  of  laws  which  pro- 
foundly affected  all  future  legislation  in  Babylonia 
and  Assyria,  and  even  in  the  civilized  Semitic 
world  to  the  west  of  those  regions,  Syria  and  Pales- 
tine. He  was,  in  short,  one  of  the  great  characters 
of  history,  an  epoch-making  man.  The  Babylonian 
name,  Hammurabi,  does  not  at  first  sight  seem  to 
be  the  same  as  Amraphel,  principally  because  it 
lacks  the  divine  sufifix,  el,  or  ilu,  which  has  been 
added  to  the  Hebrew  form  of  the  name.  The  Baby- 
lonian form  corresponding  to  Amraphel  would  be 
Hammurabi-elu,  The  omission  of  the  divine  suf^x 
is  a  phenomenon  we  have  already  encountered  too 
many  times  to  make  more  comment  necessary. 
With   that  exception    the  names  are,  according  to 


Survivals — Legendary,  Mythical   i^^' 

phonetic  laws,  the  same.  The  Shinar,  of  which 
y\niiai)iKl  was  king,  is  identical  with  Sunier,  of 
which  and  Akkad  Hammurabi  of  Babylon  was  king. 
With  Amraphel  arc  mentioned  three  other  kings. 
Of  these  the  first,  Arioch,  king  of  Ellasar,  seems  to 
be  identical  with  Eriaku,  king  of  Larsa,  a  contempo- 
rary of  1  lanmuirabi,  antl  the  special  representative 
in  Babylonia  of  Elamite  dominion.  The  name 
itself  appears  to  be  Elamite.  Chedorlaomer  repre- 
sents clearly  the  cuneiform  Kudurlagamar,  a  name 
of  good  Elamite  formation.  Tidal,  king  of  nations 
(in  the  Hebrew,  Co/nu),  is  apparently  Tidhulu,  king 
i)f  Ciutium.  The  corruption  in  the  Hebrew  text  is 
a  natural  one.  The  representation  that  at  that 
period  the  Elamites  were  the  dominant  power  in 
Babylonia,  and  that  these  various  kings  were  subject 
kings  of  the  Elamite  over-lord,  is  entirely  in  accord- 
ance with  the  facts  of  history.  A  raid  by  these 
kings  into  the  west  land  to  punish  recalcitrant  vas- 
sals, collect  tribute,  etc.,  would  have  been  a  natural 
event,  quite  in  accordance  with  what  we  know  from 
historical  records  to  have  taken  place  at  that  period. 
The  period  of  these  events  would  have  been  the 
23d  century  B.  C,  just  before  that  revolt  against 
Elamitic  supremacy,  at  the  head  of  which  stood 
Hammurabi,  which  resulted  in  driving  out  the 
Elamites  and    making    him    lord  of  all   Babylonia. 


i62  Early  Hebrew  Story 

These  four  kings  are  represented  as  having  met  and 
defeated  five  kings  of  the  Jordan  Valley  and  the 
neighboring  country,  sacked  the  cities  of  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah,  and  carried  off  as  a  prisoner  Lot, 
Abraham's  nephew.  Then  Abram,  the  Hebrew, 
gathered  together  his  trained  men,  three  hundred 
and  eighteen  in  all,  pursued  them,  fell  upon  them 
by  night,  smote  them,  rescued  his  brother  Lot, 
recaptured  the  stolen  goods  and  returned.  On  his 
way  back  he  met  Melchizedek,  king  of  Salem,  or 
Jerusalem,  and  paid  him  tribute  from  the  booty, 
returning  the  remainder,  less  the  immediate  expenses 
of  his  followers,  to  the  plundered  kings. 

Now  the  names  of  the  four  kings  in  this  narra- 
tive are  either  names  actually  known  from  the 
Babylonian  inscriptions  as  the  names  of  kings  of 
the  regions  represented,  or,  if  not  actually  occur- 
ring as  names  of  kings  of  that  period,  they  are  at 
least  perfectly  natural  and  proper  as  such  names. 
The  general  conditions  of  Babylonia  as  here  repre- 
sented are  historically  and  politically  accurate,  and 
such  a  raid  into  the  westland  as  that  here  described 
is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  conditions  which 
we  know  to  have  prevailed  in  the  23d  century  B.  C. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  representation  of  the 
defeat  of  the  four  kings  by  Abraham  is  quite  out 
of  keeping  with    the  account  given  elsewhere    of 


Sur\i\als — Legendary,  Mythical  i^\i 

Abraham  as  a  wandering  hcrdnian,  with  head- 
quarters in  the  neighborhood  of  Hebron,  journeying 
back  and  forth  through  the  country.  It  has 
been  suggested  that  some  Later  writer,  having 
before  him  in  a  Babylonian  text  the  account  of 
the  raid  of  Chedorlaomcr,  made  out  of  it  a  sort 
of  novelette,  combining  unrelated,  historical  events 
drawn  from  the  Babylonian  texts  with  the  Hebrew 
heroic  legends  of  Abraham.  As  there  arc  ele- 
ments of  local  color  in  the  narrative,  which  point 
to  a  close  connection  of  the  narrator  with  the 
region,  it  would  seem  that  if  anything  of  this 
sort  were  done,  it  must  have  been  done  at  an  early 
period. 

It  seems  to  me  more  probable  that  we  have 
here  a  reminiscence  of  actual  events  rather  than 
a  romance  compounded  out  of  cuneiform  texts 
and  Canaanite  legends.  The  difTlculty  which  crit- 
ics have  found  with  the  narrative  as  history  has 
been  the  impossibility  of  Abraham,  a  herdman, 
attacking  and  defeating  these  four  kings.  If  it  be 
remembered  that  Abraham  was  the  great  hero, 
around  whom  all  sorts  of  national  events  affecting 
both  the  pre-Israelitic  and  also  the  Israelite  inhabi- 
tants of  southern  Palestine  clustered,  this  diflFiculty 
will  be  removed,  and  we  may  fairly  argue  that  we 
have  in  this  chapter  the  remembrance  of  an  actual 


1^4  Early    Hebrew   Story 

historical  event :  the  defeat,  under  the  lead  of  the 
people  of  southern  Palestine,  of  the  Elamite  Baby- 
lonian invaders,  by  a  night  attack,  after  the  latter 
had  overrun  Lotan  and  the  cities  of  the  plain,  carn-- 
ing  off  much  plunder,  including  the  kindred  of  the 
men  of  Hebron  and  the  surrounding  region.  What 
I  have  already  said  must  be  remembered  :  that,  as 
these  stories  have  come  down  to  us  in  the  form  of 
a  personal  narrative,  there  is  much  of  detail  mixed 
in  which  is  not  itself  historical  or  pertinent  to  the 
historical  narrative.  All  that  we  can,  as  a  rule, 
hope  to  understand  from  stories  of  this  description, 
is  certain  main  incidents.  So  in  this  story  the 
origin  and  bearing  of  the  episode  of  Melchizedek  is 
not  altogether  clear.  The  name  of  the  king  and 
his  city  fit  in  a  way  with  what  we  know  of  the 
early  history  of  Jerusalem  from  the  Tel-el-Amarna 
tablets,  but  the  incident  seems  to  have  been  so 
colored  with  later  religio-mystical  ideas  about 
Jerusalem,  that  the  historical  element  is  veiled 
beyond  recognition. 

It  has  been  noted  that  when  we  come  to  the 
consideration  of  racial  conditions  the  stories  of 
Abraham  are  much  fuller  and  richer  than  those  of 
Isaac  and  Jacob.  We  have  in  Abraham  a  connec- 
tion with  all  those  southern  tribes,  with  whom,  in 
point  of  fact,  Hebron    and  the  territory  of  Judah 


Survivals — Legendary,  Mythical   '^>5 

stood  in  closest  contact  and  rclat  ionsln'i).  It  will 
be  remcmbcicd  that  the  account  of  the  settlement 
of  Judah,  in  Judi^cs  I,  rei)rescnts  that  tribe  as  con- 
taining non-Judican  elements  which  came  in  from 
the  south,  and  especially  that  Hebron  and  the 
region  about  and  to  the  south  of  it  was  settled  by 
the  Calebites  and  other  kindred  peoples.  This  con- 
nection with  the  tribes  to  the  south  is  recognized 
in  Abraham's  tradition  and  confirms  the  sugges- 
tion already  made  that  in  its  origin  that  tradition 
connected  itself  first  and  foremost  with  the  neigh- 
borhood and  shrine  of  Hebron.  But  when  the 
Hebrews  had  adopted  the  people  and  the  tradi- 
tions of  that  region  and  found  in  Abraham  a  fore- 
father, it  was  natural  that  the  traditions  which 
belonged  properly  to  other  shrines  or  other  sections 
of  the  country  occupied  b}-  them,  should  also  be 
told  in  connection  with  Abraham.  As  ancestor  of 
all,  he  is  to  be  connected  with  all,  and  the  Jud.ean 
narrative  legitimizes,  so  to  speak,  the  worship  at 
the  sacred  oak  of  Morch  at  Shechem,  and  the 
sacred  stones  at  Bethel  by  stories  connecting  them 
with  Abraham.  This  it  is,  I  think,  which  accounts 
for  the  appearance  of  Abraham  in  connection  with 
Beersheba,  with  Bethef  and  with  Shechem. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  tradition  of  Abraham 
is  that  of  Jacob,  and  he,  also,  for  the  same  reason, 


1^6         Early    Hebrew   Story 

is  connected  not  only  with  Bethel,  but  also,  though 
to  a  less  extent,  with  other  sacred  places.  He  has 
his  origin  in  Beersheba  (Gen.  XXVIII,  lo),  the 
relation  of  which  to  historical  fact  and  the  religious 
practice  of  a  later  date  has  been  already  commented 
on.  He  is  also  connected  with  Shechem,  where, 
according  to  the  Elohist  (Gen.  XXXIII,  30),  he  set 
up  an  altar  and  called  it  El-Elohe-Israel.  In  the 
Book  of  Judges  we  find  various  mentions  of  a  sacred 
place  and  apparently  a  temple  at  Shechem,  ascribed 
indiscriminately  to  El-Berith  and  Baal-Berith.  The 
statement  of  the  Elohist  appears  to  bring  Jacob  into 
connection  with  the  foundation  of  the  worship  at  that 
site.  In  another  passage,  also  in  the  Elohistic  nar- 
rative, Jacob  is  described  as  hiding  the  strange  gods 
and  the  earrings,  which  were  always  devotional  ob- 
jects, under  the  sacred  oak  at  Shechem.  While  the 
story  clearly  connects  him  in  some  way  with  this 
sacred  tree,  it  is  not  altogether  clear  what  its  real 
meaning  is  or  its  relation  to  the  religious  life  of  the 
people.  It  may  represent  some  historical  occur- 
rence. Jacob  is  also  brought  into  connection  with 
two  sacred  places  east  of  the  Jordan,  namely,  Maha- 
naim  and  Penuel  (Gen.  XXXII,  i  f.  and  24  ff.). 
How  and  why  these  two  places  were  originally 
sacred,  with  what  names  they  were  originally  con- 
nected, and  what  was  the  character  of  the  worship 


Sur\  i\als       Lcgciuiary,  Mytlucal    "^7 

there  conducted,  \vc  do  n(5t  know.  Whatever  that 
sanctity,  and  whatever  the  early  tradition,  both  holy 
places  were,  at  an  early  date,  brou<;ht  into  connec- 
tion with  the  story  of  Jacob,  precisely  in  the  same 
way  in  wiiich  various  shrines  in  Syria  of  diverse  ori- 
gin have  been  brought  into  connection  with  St. 
George.  The  meaning  of  the  name  Mahanaim  is 
explained,  after  the  manner  of  etymological  myths, 
as  evidence  that  the  hosts  of  God,  the  angels,  met 
Jacob  at  this  place.  With  the  exception  of  this 
brief  fragment,  the  legend,  whatever  it  was,  about 
Mahanaim,  has  been  lost. 

Penuel  or  Peniel  is  similarly  explained  by  an  ety- 
mological myth  as  meaning  the  face  or  presence  of 
God.  It  is  the  place  where  Jacob  met  God  face  to 
face,  and  the  origin  of  a  sacrificial  usage  of  the 
Israelites  is  also  brought  into  connection  w^ith  the 
same  event.  It  was  because  God  touched  the  hol- 
low of  Jacob's  thigh  when  he  met  and  wrestled  with 
Him  at  Penuel  that  the  Israelites  do  not  eat  the 
sinew  of  the  hip,  which  is  upon  the  hollow  of  the 
thigh,  to  this  day, 

Jacob  is  also  brought  into  connection  with  the 
heap  of  witness  at  Gilead  and  Mi/pah.  P>om  the 
story  (Gen. XXXI,  44  ff.)  it  would  appear  that  this 
was  one  of  those  ancient  stone  monuments,  a  circle 
or  alignment  or  a  mere  formless  heap  or  heaps  of 


1 68  Early  Hebrew  Story 

stones,  which  were  regarded  as  sacred  and  which,  by 
tradition  or  agreement,  had  come  to  be  regarded  as 
the  boundary  line  between  Aramaeans  and  Israel- 
ites. The  authorship  of  this  monument,  which 
possessed,  of  course,  a  sacred  character  and  was,  like 
all  monuments  of  that  sort,  a  place  of  vows  certainly, 
and  probably  of  sacrifice,  is  ascribed  to  Jacob,  who, 
with  his  brethren,  gathered  stones  and  made  a  heap 
and  sacrificed  there  at  the  heap,  and  made  with 
Laban,  the  mythical,  semi-divine  hero  of  Aram,  a 
covenant  that  this  should  be  the  boundary  line 
between  Aram  and  Israel.  Historically  this  would 
point  to  an  early  period,  for  in  the  time  of  Ahab,  in 
the  9th  century  B.  C,  this  had  long  ceased  to  be 
the  boundary  line.  The  Aramaeans  had  occupied 
a  considerable  portion  of  Gilead,  and  even  crossed 
the  Jordan  and  invaded  western  Palestine.  This 
story  looks  back,  therefore,  to  a  traditional,  geo- 
graphical relation  between  Aram  and  Israel,  long 
antedating  the  9th  century  B.  C.  This  and  the 
story  of  the  relations  of  Israel  and  Edom,  told  under 
the  names  of  Jacob  and  Esau,  seem  to  represent  the 
traditions  of  an  early  time  and  the  conditions  of  the 
Israelites  in  the  period  before  they  occupied  the 
country  west  of  the  Jordan,  when  they  were  brought 
into  rivalry  and  unfriendly  contact  with  Edomites 
and  Aramaeans,  in  the  struggle  of  all  for  place  and 


Survivals  —  Legendary,  Mythical   '<'9 

land.  The  strucjglc  with  Rdom  and  the  character- 
ization  of  the  heroes  of  the  two  peoples  in  Esau  and 
Jacob,  as  related  in  tliis  narrative,  is  a  fine  expres- 
sion of  what  one  miglit  call  the  opposing,  uncon- 
scious views  which  were  to  be  developed  in  the 
national  histories  of  the  two  peoples. 

Indirectly,  in  the  narrative  of  the  Elohist,  Jacob 
is  connected  with  two  iamous  tcu/i's,  —  to  apply  a 
modern  term  to  things  ancient  —  of  the  Israelite 
period,  namely,  the  Tomb  of  Rachel  and  the  Tomb 
of  Deborah.  To  the  former  (Gen.  XXXV,  19  f.), 
which  has  possibly  maintained  its  sanctity  to  the 
present  day,  reference  has  already  been  made.  The 
second,  the  tomb  or  7i'r/j'oi  Deborah,  has  a  different 
history  (Gen.  XXXV,  8).  Deborah  was  according 
to  this  story  the  nurse  of  Rebekah,  Jacob's  mother, 
and  her  name  was  connected  with  an  oak  below 
Bethel  which  was  called  Allon-Bacuth.  In  the 
story  of  Deborah,  in  the  Book  of  Judges  (Judges 
IV,  5),  this  same  place  is  brought  into  connection 
with  that  heroine.  She  dwelt,  we  are  told,  under 
the  palm  tree  of  Deborah,  between  Ramah  and 
Bethel,  on  Ml.  Ephraim.  Mere  we  have  a  phe- 
nomenon which  is  common  enough  everywhere, 
where  the  same  place  belongs  to  different  persons 
or  saints  of  the  same  name.  To  the  popular  mind 
these  are  one,  but  the  stories  told   show  frequently 


I70  Early  Hebrew  Story 

that  we  have    two   or    more  characters    combined 
under  one  name. 

I  have  already  suggested  the  probable  original 
connection  of  Milkah  and  Sarah,  the  wives  of  Abra- 
ham and  his  brother  Nahor,  with  the  goddesses 
associated  with  the  god  Sin  at  Haran.  Laban, 
Jacob's  father-in-law,  is  apparently  connected  with 
the  same  moon  worship,  the  word  Laban  itself,  which 
is  kindred  to  Lebanon,  the  name  of  the  famous 
mountains,  meaning  moon.  This  is  one  of  those 
survivals  which  proves  the  original  existence  in  these 
tales  of  a  mythological  element,  of  which  in  their 
present  form,  however,  we  see  but  vague  and  dim 
traces.  That  they  were  told  first  among  a  polythe- 
istic people,  that  gods  and  goddesses  played  a  part 
in  them,  would  in  itself  seem  probable,  and  these 
traces  serve  to  show  that  such  was  actually  the  case. 
But  so  thoroughly  were  they  cleansed  in  their 
reproduction  and  growth  under  the  Israelites  of 
everything  of  this  sort,  so  thoroughly  have  they 
been  remoulded  into  the  monotheistic  thought  of 
Israel,  that  we  find  no  more  than  traces  or  sugges- 
tions of  the  originaKpolytheistic  element,  the  mere 
shadows  of  myths.  Similarly,  while  we  have  in 
some  of  the  names  which  have  come  down  to  us  in 
these  early  stories,  like  Leah,  the  wild  cow,  Rachel, 
the  ewe,  perhaps  Ephraim,  the  bull,  and  others,  sug- 


Sur\  i\  als —  Legendary,  Mythical 


1  71 


gestions  of  a  primitive  totcmistic  conception,  yet 
that  totemism  is  a  thing  of  the  very  remote  past, 
only  discernible,  if  at  all,  in  a  few  names  and 
possibly  a  couple  of  ritual  practices. 

The  stories  of  the  patriarchs,  as  they  have  come 
down  to  us,  are  singular  for  their  freedom  from 
these  coarser  and  more  material  elements,  which 
continued  to  exist  and  play  a  great  role  in  the 
much  more  highly  developed  and,  in  some  respects, 
more  philosophic,  religious  doctrines  and  practices  of 
Egypt  and  Babylonia.  These  stories  as  they  have 
come  down  to  us  are  peculiar,  also,  for  their  moral 
elevation,  their  purit)-  of  thought  ami  their  freedom 
from  any  of  the  abominations  of  the  Canaanite 
religion  which  we  know  exercised  at  this  period  and 
much  later  a  great  influence  on  the  religious  practice 
and  belief  of  the  Israelites  themselves.  While  we 
have  from  the  books  of  the  Kings  and  the  Prophets 
testimony  that,  even  to  a  late  period,  polytheism, 
child  worship  and  sexual  immorality,  as  a  religious 
rite,  were  commonly  practised  among  the  worship- 
pers of  Yahaweh,  pervading  the  very  precincts  of 
the  sanctuary  at  Jerusalem,  we  find  these  old  stories 
so  free  from  the  profanation  of  such  religious  rites 
and  practices  that  what  traces  of  them  arc  discern- 
ible are  due  almost,  one  may  say,  to  microscopic 
dissection.     It    has    already    been    .said    that   these 


172 


Early  Hebrew  Story 


stories,  as  they  have  come  down  to  us  in  the 
Yahawistic  and  Elohistic  narratives,  represent  folk- 
lore, not  the  conceptions  of  individual  moralists, 
philosophers,  prophets  and  reformers  standing  apart 
from  the  people,  but  the  thought  of  the  people 
itself.  They  are,  therefore,  a  peculiarly  valuable 
testimony  to  us  of  the  existence  among  the  Israel- 
ites from  a  very  early  period  of  a  mass  of  people 
imbued  with  a  popular,  not  philosophical,  mono- 
theistic idea,  with  a  lofty  moral  conception  of  God, 
and  with  an  ethical  code  enormously  in  advance  of 
that  of  the  peoples  about  them. 

These  patriarchal  stories  were  connected  espe- 
cially, as  has  been  pointed  out,  with  the  great 
shrines  of  Hebron,  Beersheba  and  Bethel.  The 
later  religion,  the  religion  of  the  Prophets,  from 
Isaiah's  time  onward,  connected  itself  with  Jerusa- 
lem. Whether  in  the  original  stories  of  the  patri- 
archs we  have  any  trace  of  Jerusalem  is  not  alto- 
gether clear.  Two  passages  in  the  legend  of  Abra- 
ham connect  themselves  in  their  present  form  with 
this  place, —  the  story  of  Abraham  and  Melchizedek, 
king  of  Salem,  that  is,  Jerusalem,  in  the  fourteenth 
chapter  of  Genesis,  and  the  story  of  the  sacrifice  of 
Isaac  in  the  twenty-second  chapter.  It  may  be 
that  the  latter,  and  perhaps  both,  were  worked  in 
in  the  latest  handling,  after  Jerusalem  had  become 


Sur\i\als      l.cgcndar\,  Mythical    '73 

the  center  of  worship.  My  own  inchnation  is  to 
suppose  that  the  references  arc  original  and  arc 
evidence  that  Jerusalem  was  recognized  as  a  sacred 
place  at  an  early  period  antl  brought  into  connec- 
tion with  the  story  of  Abraham  on  the  principle 
which  I  have  already  explained.  However  this 
may  be,  Jerusalem  ccrtainl)-  played  no  great  part  in 
the  early  period.  It  gave  no  heroic  name,  no  mass 
of  myth  and  legend  to  the  Hebrews.  When  the 
Israelites  conquered  Jerusalem  it  was  for  them  a 
place  at  least  relatively  indifferent  —  the  city  of  the 
Jebusites.  When  the  Israelite  palladium,  the  ark, 
about  which  Israelite  tradition  and  worship  from 
Moses'  time  onward  centered,  was  placed  at  Jerusa- 
lem, it  was  brought  into  connection  with  no  great 
name  which  had  already  assumed  a  legendary  con- 
nection with  Israel,  like  that  of  Abraham  or  Isaac 
or  Jacob.  The  ground  was  practically  free  for  the 
establishment  of  a  worship  which  should  center 
itself  about  the  ark,  free  from  local  traditions,  a 
place  where  the  Israelite  could  make  his  religion,  as 
it  were,  anew,  not  building  upon  local  foundations. 
This  local  dissociation  of  the  political  and  religious 
center  established  by  David  from  the  sites  of  the 
great  traditions  of  the  past  helped  those  traditions 
to  assume  the  form  which  they  have  assumed  of  a 
story  of  the  past  life  of  Israel  common   to  all,  not 


174  Early  Hebrew  Story 

partisan  in  final  shape,  as  it  were,  to  one  place  or 
another,  freed  largely  in  this  final  form  even  from 
definite  association  with  the  places  and  shrines 
with  which  the  stories  were  first  connected.  But 
before  this  stage  was  reached  these  stories  them- 
selves, partly  through  the  original  importance  of 
the  shrines  which  they  represented,  partly  through 
the  greater  skill  or  effectiveness  of  the  narrators 
who  told  the  stories  of  these  particular  sanctuaries, 
had  become  so  popular  that  the  stories  and  tra- 
ditions  of  other  shrines  Avere  absorbed  in  them,  as 
I  have  already  endeavored  to  explain 

This  is  a  practice  familiar  in  the  religious  devel- 
opment of  other  countries.  In  India,  in  Egypt, 
in  Babylonia,  in  Greece,  in  Italy,  a  god  dom- 
inating, through  the  political  supremacy  of  the 
place  which  he  represents,  or  for  some  other  cause, 
a  larger  region  or  the  whole  country,  absorbs  the 
names,  the  attributes  and  the  cults  of  various 
gods  in  other  places.  Sometimes  traces  of  the 
original  divergence  of  cult  continue  to  exist  in 
peculiar  traditions  or  stories  connected  with  the 
god  at  one  place,  which  do  not  appear  at  another. 
Often  we  can  observe  religious  strata,  some  of 
them  the  result  of  political  events,  others  of  the 
activities  of  great  religious  reformers.  In  Baby- 
lonia   and    Egypt  we   have   first    the  cult    by    dif- 


Sur\i\als — I.cgciulary,  Mythical   '75 

fcrciit  towns  or  nonics  of  different  gods,  the  pa- 
trons of  those  places.  An  association  of  these 
towns  or  nomes  led  next  to  an  association  of  the 
gods,  so  that  in  each  town  more  than  one  god  was 
worshipped.  Then  the  god  of  the  chief  town  or 
nomc  tended  to  become  the  chief  god  of  the  whole 
association,  to  absorb  into  himself  the  other  gods 
and  their  attributes.  There  was  a  still  further 
development  which  led  men  to  speak  of  one  god 
as  though  he  possessed  all  power  and  all  attributes, 
as  though  he  were  the  god  of  all  ;  but  in  the  same 
or  the  next  breath  a  number  of  different  gods  are 
recognized  or  the  same  powers  and  attributes  are 
ascribed  to  some  other  god  of  the  pantheon.  In 
Babylonia,  with  the  development  of  the  power  of 
Babylon,  the  name,  the  attributes  and  the  legends  '' 
of  En-Lil,  the  Bel  of  Nippur,  were  transferred  to 
Marduk,  or  Merodach,  the  Bel  of  Babylon.  It  was 
originally  Bel  En-lil  of  Nippur  who  contended  with 
the  dragon  and  slew  him,  as  the  champion  of  the 
gods,  who  brought  order  out  of  chaos  and  the  like. 
In  the  later  period,  from  about  2200  B.  C.  onward, 
it  was  Marduk  of  Babylon  who  did  all  this. 

The  same  phenomena  we  find  in  the  development 
and  transfer  of  the  worship  of  Christian  saints  in 
Syria,  Asia  Minor  and  Europe.  I  have  already 
called  attention   to  the  peculiar  dominance  of  St. 


176      •     Early    Hebrew   Story 

George  in  the  worship  of  Syria.  In  actual  practice 
there  exists  today  among  the  Moslems,  Christians 
and  Jews  of  Palestine  and  Syria,  that  is,  the  com- 
mon people,  a  nominal  monotheism,  combined 
with  a  practical  polytheism,  and  one  can  often  best 
understand  the  peculiar  phenomena  which  we  meet 
in  the  early  pages  of  the  Bible  by  a  study  of  the 
present  day  religious  phenomena  in  Palestine  and 
Syria.  One  shrine  assumes  a  peculiar  importance. 
The  saint  of  that  shrine,  for  some  reason  not  always 
clear,  dominates  the  region  and  absorbs  the  attri- 
butes, the  stories  and  the  cults  of  other  saints  and 
other  shrines.  In  part  the  tales  of  those  other 
shrines  pass  altogether  out  of  existence,  leaving 
behind  no  trace  or  only  a  faint  trace  in  names  or 
curious  and  unexplained  practices  and  the  like.  In 
part  these  tales  continue  on,  embodied  in  the  tales 
of  the  dominant  saints  or  heroes. 

Traces,  survivals  of  the  same  conditions,  we  have 
found  in  the  tales  of  the  heroes  of  Hebron,  Beer- 
sheba,  Bethel  and  Shechem  —  the  altar  which  Abra- 
ham sets  up  here,  the  mazzebah  erected  there,  the 
statement  that  here  God  appeared,  there  such  and 
such  a  patriarch  annointed  a  stone,  here  was  the 
tomb  of  his  wife,  and  there,  under  yonder  oak,  he 
buried  the  gods  and  the  divine  symbols  which  he 
had  brought  with  him  from   a  foreign  land.     Such 


Survivals —  Legendary,  Mythical 


/  / 


fragmentary  notices  as  tlic  appearance  of  the  angels 
at  Mahanaim,  or  longer  tales,  like  the  story  of  the 
wrestling  with  God  at  Pcnuel,  are  the__suryiyals  of  n 
olderjocal  legends  and  traditions  which  have  been 
absorbed  in  the  great  legend  cycles  of  those  who 
have  become  the  patron  saints,  if  one  may  so  ex- 
press it,  of  Israel,  the  patriarchs  of  Bible  story. 

There  are,  however,  a  few  survivals  of  the  tradi- 
tions of  ancient  sanctuaries  which  were  not  absorbed 
in  the  stories  of  these  patriarchs,  but  which  are 
retained  in  another  form,  generally  woven  into  his- 
torical narratives.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  story 
of  Jephthah's  daughter.  For  her  the  women  go  and 
mourn  upon  the  mountains  at  a  certain  season,  pre- 
cisely as  women  elsewhere  mourned  for  Tammuz. 
We  have  here  one  of  those  mourning  rites  connected 
with  the  death  of  a  demi-god  or  goddess,  or  hero  or 
heroine,  which  appear  at  many  places,  and  which 
here,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  was  ultimately  brought 
into  connection  with  historical  events  ;  for  I  presume 
that  the  bulk  of  Jephthah's  history,  at  least  that  part 
surrounding  the  hero,  Jephthah,  who  led  the  Israel- 
ites east  of  the  Jordan  against  their  foes,  whether 
those  were  Ammonites  or  Moabites,  may  be  unques- 
tionably accepted  as  fact.  The  fact  of  the  sacrifice  of 
a  maiden  might  in  itself  be  true,  but  it  is  suspiciously 
like  a  class  of  stories  with  which  wc  are  all  familiar, 


178         Early    Hebrew   Story 

such  as  the  Greek  story  of  Agamemnon  and  Iphi- 
genia,  or,  in  principle,  the  fairy  tale  of  "  Beauty  and 
the  Beast,"  where  the  father  vows  that  he  will  sacri- 
fice the  first  thing  that  meets  him  on  his  return 
home,  which  first  thing  turns  out  to  be  his  daughter. 
There  are  certain  characteristics  which  appear  over 
and  over  again  in  folklore,  and  which  often  make  a 
tale,  supposed  to  be  historical,  suspicious,  because 
they  are  characteristic  of  folklore.  Characteristic 
of  folklore,  for  example,  as  we  know  it  in  Germanic 
story,  as  well  as  in  the  East,  is  the  exaltation  of  the 
youngest  son.  The  father  has  various  sons  and  the 
youngest  son,  whom  all  put  upon  and  despise,  turns 
out  to  be  the  one  to  do  great  things,  just  as  in  the 
story  of  Jacob  and  his  children.  So,  also,  the  sacri- 
fice of  Jephthah's  daughter,  while  in  itself  quite 
possible,  is  strikingly  like  an  episode  which  appears 
in  the  folklore  of  many  peoples.  Moreover,  the 
mourning  of  the  women  on  the  mountains  for 
Jephthah's  daughter  is  clearly  a  survival  and  remi- 
niscence of  some  early  pre-Israelite  cult. 

I  have  already  suggested  that  the  story  of  Samson 
contains  legendary  and  mythical  elements.  The 
very  name  Samson,  "  man  of  Shamash,"  the  sun- 
god,  is  in  \\.s.^i  prima  facie  evidence  of  some  con- 
nection with  the  cult  of  Shamash  (Shemesh  in  our 
Old  Testament).     The   country  in    which    Samson 


Sur\i\:ils      Legendary,  Mythical    '79 

pKiyct-I  his  part  was  tlio  country  abdut  Beth  Shc- 
inc>h,  a  name  still  preserved  in  the  ruin  mound  of 
^\in-Shems,  the  shrine  of  the  sun  god.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  the  story  of  the  shearing  of  the  locks 
of  Samson,  by  which  he  was  deprived  of  his  strength, 
is  mythical,  connected  with  a  sun  myth,  but  if  it 
had  any  such  connection  that  connection  must 
liave  been  early  lost.  The  story  as  wc  now  have 
it  is  one  which  has  as  its  motive  the  emphasis 
and  exaltation  of  the  Nazaritc  vow  and  the  Naza- 
rite  ritual.  The  Nazaritc  vow  was  clearly  an  old 
ritual  custom  that  existed  in  Canaan  before  the 
time  of  Israel.  It  played  a  not  unimportant  part 
in  later  Israelite  ritual  and  law,  but  its  origin  is 
much  older  than  the  Israelite  period.  With  the 
mythical  elements  contained  in  this  story  of  Sam- 
son there  are  mingled  also  recollections  of  his- 
torical events,  the  struggle  with  the  invading 
Philistines,  so  that  we  have  here  myth,  legend  and  ^ 
history  combined. 

The  Samson  story,  or  legend,  or,  better,  perhaps, 
cycle  of  legends,  has  a  distinct  character  of 
its  own,  different  from  that  of  any  of  the  other 
legends  familiar  among  the  Hebrews.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  folklore  it  is  one  of  the  most 
fascinating  tales  in  the  Jiiblc,  full  of  glimpses  into 
the  customs  and  practices  of  the  people,  and  quite 


i8o         Early    Hebrew   Story- 
equal  to  the  story  of  Jacob  in  its  wit  and  merri- 
ment. 

We  have  here  some  excellent  specimens  of  the 
folk-riddles  which  were  so  prominent  a  feature  in 
the  life  and  thought  of  early  times  and  are  still  a 
familiar  element  of  modern  oriental  life.  In  con- 
nection with  one  of  these  riddles  we  have  a  rude, 
strong  couplet  which  affords  a  characteristic  speci- 
men of  the  early  folk-poetry  : 

"  If  ye  had  not  ploughed  with  my  cow 
Ye  had  not  found  my  riddle  now." 

Another  similar  couplet  is  woven  into  a  characteris- 
tic etymological  legend,  the  explanation  of  the  name 
of  the  place  Lehi,  which  seems  to  be  the  word  jaw- 
bone, by  a  story  which  describes  the  heroic  strength 
of  Samson,  who  overcomes  the  superior  forces  of 
the  hostile  Philistines  with  no  other  weapon  than 
the  jaw-bone  of  an  ass  : 

"  With  the  jaw-bone  of  an  ass,  mass  upon  mass, 
With  the  jaw-bone  of  an  ass  I  have  killed  ten  thousand  men."' 

The  student  of  early  customs  also  finds  in  Sam- 
son's story  much  that  is  interesting.  Samson's  mar- 
riage to  the  Philistine  wife,  whom  he  visits  only 
from  time  to  time,  with  a  present  of  a  kid,  is  a  sur- 
vival of  that  ancient  custom  of  marriage  in  which  a 
woman  remained  with  her  tribe  or  clan,  the  children 
also  belonging  to  her  clan.     In  such  marriage  the 


Sur\i\:ils       Legendary,  Mythical    ^^^ 

husband  often  came  to  his  wife  secretly,  so  tliat  tlie 
identity  of  the  husband  was  almost,  if  not  (juite, 
unknown  to  the  other  members  of  her  clan,  and 
reguhul)'  w  ith  a  present. 

In  the  episode  of  Delilah  and  Samson  one  can- 
not help  but  be  suspicious  of  a  mythical  element. 
lUit  an  element  of  another  nature  also  enters 
in.  Attention  has  been  called  to  the  immoral 
worship,  the  sexual  cult,  so  pronounced  a  charac- 
teristic of  Canaanite  religion,  and,  for  that  matter, 
of  Babylonian  also.  The  newly  discovered  Baby- 
lonian code  of  Hammurabi  contains  laws  about 
women  devoted  to  what  we  should  consider  a  life 
of  shame,  as  a  constituent  part  of  the  religious 
system  connected  with  certain  shrines.  JThey  were 
half  held  in  honor  for  the  life  they  led  as  servants 
of  the  god  or  goddess,  half  regarded  as  creatures  of 
dishonor.  The  same  conditions  of  sexual  cult  pre- 
vailed in  Palestine,  as  is  clear,  among  other  things, 
from  the  statements  of  the  Hebrew  prophets. 
That  the  Israelites,  to  a  large  extent,  adopted  in 
this  regard  the  customs  and  ideas  of  the  people 
among  whom  they  were  settled  is  clear,  not  only 
from  the  frequent  denunciations  of  this  worship  in 
the  Prophets,  but  also  from  the  historical  state- 
ments of  the  Books  of  the  Kings.  Such  worship 
crept  into  the  very  Temple  of  Yahaweh  at   Jeru- 


i82  Early    Hebrew  Story 

salem,  so  that  we  find  mention  in  the  reforms  of 
Hezekiah  and  Josiah  of  both  male  and  female  pros- 
titutes consecrated  to  the  service  of  a  goddess, 
evidently  Ishtar  or  Ashtaroth,  having  their  shrine 
and  apparently  also  their  abode  within  the  Temple 
limits.  In  view  of  these  facts,  it  would  be  strange 
if  we  should  find  no  traces  of  such  conditions  in 
early  folklore.  The  stern  and  exalted  morality 
characteristic  of  these  stories  has  left  us,  however, 
little  more  than  traces,  and  those  faint.  One  of  the 
survivals  of  tales  connected  with  this  sex  worship 
we  have,  I  presume,  in  the  story  of  Samson  and 
Delilah;  with  which  one  is  tempted  to  compare 
such  stories  as  that  of  Gilgamesh  and  Ishtar  in  the 
Babylonian  Gilgamesh  epic.  Another  survival 
there  may  be  in  what  seems  to  us  a  very  ofTensive 
and  strange  episode  in  Genesis  (XXXVIII,  3  H.)  — 
how  Tamar  played  the  harlot  with  Judah.  Possi- 
bly, also,  the  same  thing  lies  behind  the  story  of 
Rahab,  the  harlot  of  Jericho,  in  the  book  of 
Joshua. 

There  is  a  survival  of  this  sexual  cult  in  another 
form  in  the  oath  which  Abraham  exacted  of  his 
servant,  with  his  hand  upon  his  genitals  (Gen. 
XXIV,  2).  The  thought  behind  this  is,  after  all, 
the  same  in  principle  as  the  thought  which  origin- 
ally connected   itself  with   those  pillars  {inazsebaJi) 


Sur\i\als      Lcgciuhiry,  Mythical   '83 

which  arc  so  frequently  mentioned  in  Genesis,  and 
which  formed  an  intet^ral  part  of  tlic  Yahaweh  cnlt 
itself,  in  the  conception  of  the  best  minds  in  Israel, 
as  late  as  the  time  of  Isaiah.  Both  the  pillars  and 
the  oath  suggest  the  meaning  which  originally 
attached  to  such  a  cult,  expressing  itself  by  worship 
offered  to  a  stone  of  phallic  shape,  the  use  of 
phallic  symbols  as  oblations,  the  oath  by  the  organs 
of  reproduction,  and  finally  in  prostitution  itself  as 
a  ritual  act.  It  was  in  the  reproduction  of  life  that 
men  found  the  most  wonderful  exhibition  of  divine 
activity;  and  so  the  function  of  reproducing  life 
became  a  sort  of  sacrament,  a  divine  mystery,  and 
the  organs  of  reproduction  symbols  and,  in  a  sense, 
representations  of  the  divine  power  in  primitive 
times  the  world  over.  Primarily  there  was  nothing 
obscene  or  immoral  in  this  ;  in  practice  it  tended 
to  become  a  vile  debauchery.  Similarly  the  sacri- 
fice of  a  woman's  virtue  in  the  name  of  religion  and 

o 

the  cult  of  a  goddess,  was  not  primarily  a  service 
of  lust.  It  was  of  the  same  nature  as  the  sacrifice 
of  the  first-born,  the  offering  to  the  deity  of  one's 
best  and  most  precious  possession.  In  practice  it 
was  a  lewd  and  debasing  cult,  and  as  such  con- 
demned in  Israel  from  a  very  early  period,  in  strik- 
ing contrast  with  its  exaltation  or  condonation  in 
the  religions  of  kindred   and    neighboring  peoples. 


^§4  Early  Hebrew  Story 

otherwise  in  a  far  more  advanced  stage  of  civiliza- 
tion, thought  and  social  development. 

I  have  suggested  a  possible  explanation  of  the 
story  of  Rahab  in  the  book  of  Joshua,  which  brings 
it  into  connection  with  the  practices  of  the  sexual 
cult.  The  name  itself  suggests  the  cosmogonic 
myth.  The  name  appears  in  Isaiah,  Psalms  and 
Job  (as,  for  example,  Isaiah  LI,  9 ;  Psalms 
LXXXIX,  10;  Job  XXVI,  12),  as  the  name  of  a 
great  monster  which  inhabits  the  deep  and  repre- 
sents the  powers  of  darkness  and  chaos.  With  this 
monster  the  divine  power  is  continually  in  strife. 
He  smites  it  and  makes  out  of  it  heaven  and  earth. 
He  slays  it,  and  whether  as  Egypt  or  as  Babylon, 
gives  it  as  food  to  His  people.  It  is  the  enemy  of 
good  and  as  such  is  identified  with  the  enemies  of 
Israel.  It  is  anything  that  represents  the  power  of 
darkness  or  evil  ;  for  this  Rahab  is  evidently  also 
identical  with  the  leviathan,  the  behemoth,  and  the 
dragon  which  are  xnentioned  in  other  Biblical  pas- 
sages (as,  for  instance,  Psalms  LXXIV,  12  ;  CIV,  26; 
Job  XL;  Isaiah  XXVII,  i  ;  Job  VII,  12;  Ezekiel 
XXIX,  3).  The  same  monster  under  various 
names,  generally  as  a  dragon,  appears  also  in 
apocryphal  and  ultimately  Christian  literature. 
This  is  the  dragon  of  the  book  of  Revelation,  the 
great  enemy  who  is  cast  out  of  heaven  by  Michael, 


Survivals  —  Legendary,  Mythical  ^^5 

the  representative  of  tlie  powers  of  liglit.  I're- 
sumabh'  it  is  tlie  same  dragon  which  j^lays  a  part 
in  what  we  may  call  Christian  mythology  as  the 
antagonist  of  St.  George. 

Tiiis  monster  is  of  Babylonian  origin,  where 
it  plays  an  important  part  in  cosmogonic  myths. 
It  is  chaos  and  the  powers  of  darkness.  It  is 
by  the  victory  over  tliis  monster  that  Bel-Marduk 
makes  the  world  and  brings  order  out  of  con- 
fusion, light  out  of  darkness.  He  splits  the 
dragon  in  two,  of  half  of  him  he  forms  the 
heavens  and  of  the  other  half  the  earth.  But  this 
monster  appears  not  only  in  the  creation  myth. 
The  fight  between  light  and  darkness  is  continual. 
OiiC  of  the  most  famous  representations  which 
have  come  down  to  us  from  the  Babylonian  relig- 
ious art  is  a  bas  relief  representing  the  battle 
between  Bel  and  the  dragon.  That  contest  in  one 
form  or  another  was  celebrated  in  numerous  myths 
and  tales.  These  passed  over  to  the  Canaanites  dur- 
ing the  long  period  of  Babylonian  supremacy  and 
became  a  part  of  their  literary  property  and  relig- 
ious concept.  Through  them  later  the  Israelites 
made  acquaintance  with  these  conceptions  of 
mythical  monsters,  through  whom  eclipses,  earth- 
quakes and  the  like  were  brought  to  pass,  who 
represented  the  powers  of  darkness,  confusion  and 


/ 


i8^  Early  Hebrew  Story- 

chaos  with  which  the  divine  power  was  in  constant 
conflict.  But  in  place  of  the  mythological  element 
of  the  Canaanite  and  Babylonian  tales,  the  Hebrew 
substituted  the  conception  of  the  power  of  God  only. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  evidence  in  the  part  which 
the  angels  and  saints  play  in  this  conflict  in 
the  later  Hebrew  and  Christian  literature  and 
legends,  that  in  the  mind  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  the  story  never  lost  its  mythological  charac- 
ter, just  as  in  the  minds  of  the  great  mass  of  people 
the  pure  monotheism  of  the  Hebrew  or  Christian 
religion  was  diluted  with  distinctly  polytheistic 
ideas  and  cults.  The  references  in  the  Prophets, 
Psalms,  Hagiographa  and  Apocrypha  show  the  sur- 
vival of  these  ancient  myths  as  a  part  certainly  of 
the  popular  religion.  Many  other  instances  of  the 
survival  of  older  heathen  and  mythological  con- 
ceptions, and  even  of  fetishistic  and  polytheistic 
practices,  could  be  given  from  the  ritual  laws  in 
Leviticus  and  Numbers,  and  from  the  allusions  in 
prophetical  and  other  later  books.  But  the  object 
\  of  these  lectures  is  not  to  deal  with  those  elements 
in  the  later  literature,  but  to  study  the  early  stories 
of  Israel,  as  contained  in  the  folklore  particularly  of 
;,  Genesis  and  Judges,  with  a  view  to  establishing 
'  the  meaning  of  those  stories  and  their  historical 
and  religious  bearing. 


Survivals — Legendary,  Mythical    ^^7 

I  liavc  referred  to  the  reforms  of  llczekiah  and 
Josiah.  Tlie  revelation  made  in  the  Book  of  Kings, 
in  the  narrative  of  those  reforms  (2  Kinys,  XVIII,  4  ; 
XXIII,  6  ff.),of  the  objects  worshipped  and  the  char- 
acter of  worship  in  the  temple  is  rather  startling  to 
one  who  has  not  read  the  earlier  history  between 
the  lines.  We  find  depicted  a  condition  of  polythe- 
ism. Surrounding  and  connected  with  the  shrine 
of  the  great  god,  the  special  god  of  Israel,  Yahaweh, 
were  the  shrines  of  other  gods  and  goddesses,  pre- 
cisely as  in  the  Babylonian  temples.  There  were 
horses  consecrated  to  the  service  of  the  sun  god,  a 
shrine  of  Ashtoreth,  devoted  to  the  foul  worship  to 
which  I  referred  a  moment  since,  and,  among  other 
things,  a  brazen  serpent  called  Nehushtan.  Whether 
the  worship  of  this  serpent  was  at  all  connected 
with  the  mythological  ideas  regarding  Rahab,  the 
great  monster  of  the  deep,  I  do  not  know  ;  but  one 
thing  stands  out  —  the  connection  of  this  worship  of 
the  serpent  in  the  temple  with  the  story  of  the 
brazen  serpent,  which  we  find  in  the  Book  of  Num- 
bers (Numbers  XXI,  7  ff.). 

This  serpent    worshi[)    was   accounted    for  by   a  ' 
story  which  connected    itself,  it    will    be  observed, 
not    with    Abraham   or  Jacob    or    Isaac,   but    with 
Moses,  the  great  religious  leader,  through    whose 
influence    Israel    was    ultimately    brought    to    be 


i88  Early  Hebrew  Story 

a  monotheistic  people.  To  him  was  ascribed 
the  symbol  of  the  serpent,  which,  it  was  said, 
he  set  up  in  the  wilderness,  at  a  time  when 
the  people  were  in  danger  from  a  plague  of 
fiery  serpents  which  had  attacked  the  camp.  This 
is  at  least  testimony  to  the  fact  that  the  origin  of 
the  worship  was  lost  in  antiq^uity,  and  that  the  sym- 
bol of  that  worship  iij  the  Temple  of  Yahaweh  was 
older  than  the  recollection  of  man.     It  belonged  to 

■  a  primitive  and  almost  fetishistic  form  of  worship. 
With  this  survival  of  primitive  fetishism  in  connec- 

^  tion  with  the  monotheistic  and  lofty  Yahaweh  cult 
in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  as  late  as  the  time  of 
Hezekiah  one  may  compare  the  survival  of  serpent 
worship  in  Egypt  at  the  present  day  under  the 
guise  of  Islam.  Thiscult  in  Egypt  evidently  origi- 
nated in  that  rudest  stage  of  religion,  which 
expressed  itself  in  the  deification  of  all  sorts  of  crea- 
tures, and  it  has  maintained  its  place  in  all  succeed- 
ing religious  systems.  \One  may  also  compare  the 
occurrence  of  similar  worship  of  a  fetisltdescription 
in  modern  India  in  connection  with  really  profound 
and  exalted  philosophic  systems.  The  story  which 
accounted  for  this  serpent  worship  in  Jerusalem 
and  brought  it  into  connection  with  Moses,  lingered 
on  after  the  symbol  of  the  worship  had  been 
destroyed.     It  was  interwoven,  without  objection. 


Survivals      Legendary,  Mythical    ^^9 

in  a  singularly  beautiful  manner  with  the  high  and 
noble  story  of  Moses  and  his  religion,  and  the 
brazen  serpent  has  even  become,  by  that  religious 
mysticism  which  enables  us  with  catholic  instinct 
to  connect  the  religion  of  today  with  the  upward 
strivings  of  the  most  primitive  times,  a  s^'mbol  of  |» 
Jesus  Christ  exalted  on  the  cross,  by  whom  all 
mankind,  poisoned  by  the  bite  of  sin,  may  be 
redeemed  and  saved. 

There  are,  in  the  story  of  Moses,  other  elements 
of  an  unhistorical  character,  if  we  understand  by 
"  historical  "  literal  statements  of  fact.  There  are 
also  elements  of  a  p  ndy  fantastical  character,  the 
invention  of  the  narrator,  who  loved  to  decorate 
the  story  of  the  past  and  provide  it  with  a  suitable 
setting.  Of  such  a  nature  is  the  magical  element  "' 
which  is  introduced  in  connection  with  the  plagues 
of  Egypt,  Moses'  magic  wand  and  the  like.  This 
was  done  by  writers  who  were  familiar,  to  some 
extent  at  least.,  with  the  claim  to  magical  pre-emi- 
nence of  Egypt  and  the  nature  of  the  magic  that 
was  supposed  to  be  wrought  there.  Late  writings 
in  the  Demotic  script  have  revealed  to  us  the  fact 
that,  from  an  early  period,  there  existed  in  Egypt 
a  large  literature  which  dealt  with  magic  and  magi- 
cal achievements.  The  story  of  Moses,  as  told  in 
Exodus,  would  seem  to  show  that  the  fame  of  these 


190         Early  Hebrew  Story 

magic  tales  and  some  of  their  contents  early  spread 
to  neighboring  regions.  Stories  of  this  description 
possess  a  peculiar  power  of  dissemination  by  the 
hold  they  take  on  the  popular  imagination.  Atten- 
tion has  already  been  called  to  the  reappearance  of 
some  of  the  motifs  of  these  Egyptian  magical  tales, 
notably  the  black,  Ethiopian  magician,  in  the  legends 
of  Charlemagne's  paladins.  To  the  Egyptians  the 
Ethiopians  were  the  masters  of  magic  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  English  ascribed  peculiar  magical 
powers  to  the  Cornishmen,  the  Scandinavians  to  the 
Laps,  the  Germans  to  the  Huns, —  because  of  the 
"  mystery  of  their  barbarism.  It  is  the  same  princi- 
ple which  leads  primitive  men  to  ascribe  peculiar 
supernatural  powers  to  the  lower  animals.  Such 
elements,  derived  from  Egyptian  sources,  con- 
nected themselves  with  the  history  of  Moses  for  the^ 
same  reason  that  stories  derived  from  Egyptian  orig- 
inals gathered  about  the  legend  of  Joseph.  Moses 
and  Joseph  were  connected  with  Egypt ;  therefore 
the  narrators  sought  to  adorn  their  tales  with  Egyp- 
tian material,  real  or  supposed.  It  may  be  remem- 
bered, by  the  way,  that  Joseph  is  also  credited  with 
magical  power,  both  as  an  interpreter  of  dreams 
and  as  a  diviner. 

Besides  this  magical  element  derived  from  Egyp- 
tian sources,  we  find  in  the  story  of  Moses  other 


Sur\i\als — Legendary,  Mythical    '9^ 

elements  o{  an  unhistorical  character  similar  to 
some  of  those  of  which  we  have  already  met 
examples  in  the  study  of  the  tales  of  Abraham, 
Isaac  and  Jacob.  So,  in  a  very  ancient  passage,  so 
old  that  it  was  not  understood  by  the  compilers  of 
Moses'  narrative  (Exodus  IV,  24  ff.),  we  read  how 
Zipporah,  Moses'  wife,  averted  the  wrath  of  Yahaweh 
by  tiic  circumcision  of  her  son.  Here  we  have, 
apparently,  a  story  to  account  for  the  fact  that  tlie 
Israelite  was  circumcised  in  infancy,  not  as  an  in- 
itiation to  manhood,  as  is  the  practice  among  the. 
Moslems  of  the  present  day,  and  was,  perhaps,  the 
earlier  practice  amonj^  the  ancestors  of  the  Hebrews. 
P>ut  while  the  story  of  Moses  contains  such  rit-, 
ual  and  legendary  elements,  it  differs  entirely  in  its 
character  from  the  stories  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and 
Jacob.  We  are  dealing  here,  not  with  race  tradii 
tions,  nor  sanctuary  legends.  The  story  is  not  collec- ' 
live  butiiidividual.  and  in  this  we  fiml  evidence  of 
the  historical  character  of  the  main  features  of 
Moses'  history.  Time  will  not  suffice  me  to  show 
at  length  that  Moses  is  an  historical  person  and  that 
the  great  religious  movement  introduced  by  hinv^ 
was  an  historical  fact.  There  is,  as  already  pointed 
out,  too  much  of  a  tendency,  resulting  from  the 
recognition  of  the  facts  of  evolution,  to  ascribe 
everything  to  heredity  and  environment ;  to  inter- 


192  Early  Hebrew  Story 

pret  all  phenomena  and  all  actions  in  social  life  and 
history  as  the  result  of  conditions  prevailing  and 
events  occurring  previously.  After  all  allowance  is 
made  for  this  dependence  upon  the  past  and  the 
present,  it  must  be  realized  that  the  great  forward 
steps,  the  great  achievements  of  history,  of  social 
and  religious  progress,  have  been  the  result  of  the 
life,  the  thought  and  the  actions  of  individuals  who 
seemed  to  step  out  of  their  environments,  who  cannot 
be  explained  by  their  surroundings,  who  overtop  the 
men  about  them.  It  is  these  men,  the  Mohammeds, 
the  Zoroasters,  the  Buddhas,  and  their  like  who 
have  in  other  regions  and  in  other  times  achieved 
the  great  movements  affecting  and  influencing  mil- 
lions of  men  through  generation  after  generation. 
As  a  rule  the  events  of  the  lives  of  these  men  are 
mingled  with  legend  and  fiction.  Moses  was  a  man 
of  this  type.  The  story  of  his  birth  and  exposure 
on  the  Nile  is  strikingly  similar  to  that  old  Semitic 
story  of  the  exposure  on  the  Euphrates  of  King 
Sargon,  the  great  man  of  antiquity,  a  man  whose 
legend  was  probably  known  in  Palestine  as  a  result 
of  the  early  Babylonian  domination.  The  story  of 
Moses'  exposure  on  the  Nile  may  well  have  been 
derived  from  this  earlier  legend  of  the  exposure  of 
Sargon.  We  may  profitably  note  the  characteristic 
difference   between   the   legend   in  the  Hebrew  and 


Sur\i\iils      Legendary,  Mythical   '93 

the  lcf;cnd  in  the   Babj'lonian  form.     In  the  Baby- 
lonian form  it  is  a  goddess  through  whom  Sargon  is 
rescued,  and  his  story  enters  into  mythology  some- 
what as  does  that  of  Paris  of  Troy.     In  the  Hebrew 
story  Moses  is  rescued  through  divine  intervention, 
but  that  intervention  occurs   not  through  the  per- 
sonal act  of  a  god  or  goddess,  but  through  the  spir- 
it^ial  agency  by  which  God  causes  men  to  do  this  or 
that,  governing  events  and  putting   tlioughts  Jata- 
the  hearts  of  men.     It  is  well  to  note  this  difference, 
because  it  is  characteristic  of  the  difference  between 
Hebrew    legends    and    Canaanite,    Babylonian    and- 
Egyptian  legends  from  beginning  to  end.    Although 
these  legends  were  derived  by  the   Hebrews   from  __ 
the    Babylonians    and    must    have    come    to    them 
through   the  Canaanites  in   a  mythological  shape, 
the    Hebrews   have   removed   the  mythological  ele- 
ment, substituting  for  it    the    spiritual    agency  in. 
God's  action  and  a  lofty,  monotheistic  conception 
of  the  relation  of  the  divinity  to  the  universe« 

The  fact  that  such  a  legendary  element  exists  in 
Moses'  stor}-,  identical  with  or  related  to  a  similar 
element  in  the  legend  of  Sargon,  does  not  prove 
that  Moses'  story  is  in  its  origin  unhistorical.  The 
legendary  and  mythical  elements  combined  with 
Sargon's  story  in  Babylonian  literature  formerly  led 
some  scholars  to  argue  that  Sarcron  himself  was  not 


194  Early  Hebrew  Story 

an  historical  personage,  but  merely  a  creation  of 
legend.  It  is  rather  amusing  to  note  that  a  distin- 
guished German  scholar  presented  full  proof,  theo- 
retically, of  the  mythical  character  of  Sargon  in  a 
book  that  was  published  at  about  the  time  when  I  was 
excavating  monuments  containing  the  inscriptions  of 
Sargon  himself,  unearthing  a  temple  which  he  had 
built,  and  furnishing,  from  the  archaeological  side, 
conclusive  proof  of  his  existence  and  activity.  It 
was  his  great  importance  in  antiquity  which  led  to 
the  connection  of  legendary  and  mythical  elements 
with  his  name.  The  same  thing  was  true  of  Cyrus  ; 
the  same  was  true  of  Moses,  and,  to  some  extent,  of 
David,  and  is  true  of  any  great  man  even  today, 
much  more  in  the  remote  and  early  periods. 

The  scope  of  these  lectures  will  not  permit  me  to 
discuss  the  question  of  what  Moses  did.  I  wish 
only  to  warn  the  reader  not  to  conclude  that  a  char- 
acter is  unhistorical  because  birth  stories,  magical 
tales,  and  other  elements  of  a  manifestly  unhistorical 
character  are  woven  into  the  narratives  about  that 
person  which  have  come  down  to  us.  The  distinc- 
tion between  the  stories  of  Moses,  Samuel  and  David 
and  the  stories  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  is  that 
in  the  former  the  legendary  elements  are  adorn- 
ments of  the  tale  due  to  the  fancy  of  the  story-teller, 
his  desire  to  display  his  knowledge  of  the  times  and 


Sur\i\iils  —  Legendary,  Mythical    '05 

conditions  in  which  his  heroes  h'ved  and  acted,  and 
liis  effort  to  make  vivid  and  real  the  talc  which  he 
tells;  in  the  latter  the  legend  is  the  essence,  the 
kernel  of  the  story  ;  the  character  itself  is  legend. 
It  seems  to  me  that  a  comparison  of  the  stories  of 
Moses  and  Abraham,  for  instance,  should  of  itself 
convince  the  careful  and  intelligent  reader  of  the 
essential  difference  between  the  two  —  a  difference 
which  I  have  endeavored  to  indicate  in  the  discus- 
sion of  some  of  the  most  important  elements  of 
those  stories. 


LECTURE    V 

COSMOGONY   AND   PRIMEVAL   HISTORY 

THE  first  eleven  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Genesis 
are  different  in  character  and  origin  from  those 
which  succeed  them.  As  was  pointed  out  in  the 
first  lecture,  these  chapters,  although  placed  at  the 
commencement,  constitute,  nevertheless,  the  latest 
addition  to  Hebrew  story.  After  the  narratives  of 
the  Yahawist  and  Elohist  had  been  carried  back 
through  the  times  of  the  patriarchs  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  history  of  the  Hebrews  in  Abraham,  a 
further  section  was  prefixed  either  to  the  Yahawist 
or  to  the  combined  Yahawist- Elohist  narrative,  as  a 
preface  to  it,  which  undertook  to  carry  the  story 
back  to  the  creation  of  the  world. 

When  we  seek  the  history  which  lies  behind  the 
stories  in  these  earliest  chapters  of  Genesis,  we  find 
that  it  is  of  a  different  nature  and  has  a  different 
value  from  that  in  the  succeeding  chapters.  Here 
there  is  little  or  no  historical  tradition.  We  have 
rather  answers  to  the  questions  which  exercise  the 
mind  of  primitive  man  (and  in  most  cases  the  mind 
of  the   modern  scientific  man  as  well,  although  the 


C^osmogony,  l^rimcxal   History   '97 

lattcr's  point  of  view  and  method  of  handling  such 
things  arc  dilfcrcnl).  Wluit  is  the  cause  of  various 
phenomena  whicli  force  themselves  on  his  observa- 
tion ?  How  did  the  world  come  into  existence? 
Where  did  man  himself  come  from  ?  Why  does 
man  have  a  sex  consciousness  and  a  sex  shame  which 
the  beasts  do  not  have?  How  did  men  acquire 
civilization  ?  What  is  the  reason  of  the  differences 
of  language  among  men  ?  Why  should  flesh  sacri- 
fice be  acceptable  to  God  rather  or  more  than  vege- 
table sacrifice  ?  Why  do  men  speak  different  lan- 
guages ?  These  and  other  questions  are  asked  and 
answered  in  a  very  naive  and  primitive  fashion  in 
the  cosmogonies,  genealogies  and  stories  of  these 
early  chapters. 

Historically  these  chapters  are  valuable  as  a 
study  in  religious  and  moral  development.  Inci- 
dentally they  show  us  the  thought  connection  of 
Palestine  and  the  Hebrews  with  other  peoples  and 
other  regions.  Here  and  there  we  catch  glimpses, 
in  race  names  and  genealogies,  of  facts  which  pos- 
sess a  value  of  another  sort.  Sometimes  in  these 
chapters  we  have  the  material  presented  in  story 
shape,  sometimes  the  flesh  of  the  stor)'  has  wasted 
away  and  left  us  nothing  but  a  skeleton  of  names 
and  genealogies.  Here  and  there  we  encounter 
curious   little    fragments  of   longer  stories   or  mere 


198         Early    Hebrew   Story 

allusions  to  legends  evidently  well  known  to  the 
original  hearers  or  readers,  but  unknown  to  us. 
The  condition  of  these  fragments  and  allusions  and 
the  occasional  strange  breaks  or  inconcinnities  in 
the  stories  which  have  come  down  to  us  suggest  a 
considerable  recension  of  narratives  once  much 
more  extensive,  resulting,  among  other  things,  in 
the  elimination  of  mythological  and  other  material 
which  was  objectionable  to  the  monotheistic  and 
moral  Hebrew  thought. 

We  have  in  the  present  shape  of  this  portion  of 
the  book  two  narratives  combined,  a  later  narrative 
from  the  Priest  Code  and  an  earlier  narrative  from 
the  Yahawist.  But  even  the  earlier  of  these  narra- 
tives, the  Yahawistic  narrative,  as  it  has  come  down 
to  us,  gives  evidence  that  behind  it  again  there 
were  still  earlier  and  diverse  legends  and  tales. 
Probably  we  have,  in  our  present  cosmogonies  and 
primitive  legends,  but  a  very  small  survival  of  the 
mass  of  material  of  this  description  which  once 
existed. 

Characteristic  of  these  cosmogonies  and  primitive 
legends  is  their  connection  with  Babylonian  origi- 
nals. We  observe  this  even  when  we  take  up  the 
philosophical  cosmogony  of  the  Priest  Code,  con- 
tained in  the  first  chapter  and  the  first  three  verses 
of   the   second    chapter    of   Genesis.     This   is    not 


Cosmogony,  i^imcval   History    '99 

popular  folklore,  but  the  work  of  the  scholar  and 
thinker.  The  phraseology  is  the  legal  phraseology, 
with  its  repetitious  accuracy.  The  religious  con- 
cept is  exalted,  spiritual  and  thoroughly  monotheis- 
tic. There  is  little  in  common  in  the  conception 
of  this  writer  with  the  Babylonian  cosmogony, 
in  which  we  hear  of  gods  many,  male  and  female, 
the  births  of  gods  in  succeeding  rcons,  the  births  of 
hideous  monsters,  dragons  and  the  like,  themselves 
divine,  the  vain  struggle  of  the  gods  above  with 
Tiamtu,  the  monster  of  chaos,  the  contest  between 
the  god  Marduk,  as  champion  of  the  other  gods, 
and  this  monstrous  Tiamtu,  whom  having  slain  he 
divides  into  two  parts,  out  of  one  of  which  he 
makes  the  heaven  above,  and  out  of  the  other  the 
earth  beneath. 

And  yet  in  the  cosmogony  of  the  Jewish  Priest 
Code,  in  the  second  verse  of  Chapter  I,  we  have 
this  same  Tiamtu,  in  the  Hebrew  Tchom  (translated 
"the  deep  "),  used  like  a  proper  name,  without  the 
article,  to  designate  the  chaos  out  of  which  the 
world  was  created.  The  Hebrew  words  thohu  and 
bo/tu  (translated  "  waste  and  void  ")  in  the  same 
verse,  are,  also,  evidently  echoes  of  names  and  a 
concept  which  had  come  down  to  the  writer,  which 
he  did  not  invent.  They  were  ancient  words,  con- 
secrated, as  it  were,  to  this  use,  one  of  which  had 


200         Early    Hebrew   Story 

become  obsolete  for  all  else  beside.  Moreover,  the 
picture  of  the  conditions  out  of  which  the  world 
was  created,  the  formless  mass  of  land  half  hidden 
by  water,  so  foreign  to  Canaan,  suggests  the  condi- 
tions of  Babylonia.  In  Babylonia,  year  after  year, 
in  the  annual  floods,  men  saw  in  the  small  these 
conditions  of  chaos,  land  and  water  mingled  in  con- 
fusion, followed  by  the  restoration  of  order,  the 
emergence  of  land  from  the  waste,  with  plants  and 
creeping  things  and  beasts  and  men  dwelling  in 
safety  thereon  ;  and  this  annual  experience,  so 
unlike  the  conditions  of  Palestine,  colored  the 
Babylonian  conception  of  the  original  creation  of 
the  world. 

The  Babylonian  cosmogony,  as  it  has  come  down 
to  us,  partly  in  Greek  authors,  partly  in  cuneiform 
tablets,  is  evidently  a  nature  myth,  which  tells, 
under  the  picture  of  the  victory  over  chaos,  and  its 
kindred  and  mixed  forms,  the  story  of  the  battle  o£ 
light  against  darkness,  order  against  confusion. 
Bel  is  the  hero,  who  overcomes  chaos,  divides  light 
from  darkness  and  heaven  from  earth,  creates  sun 
and  moon  and  stars,  and  out  of  his  own  blood  mixed 
with  earth  makes  men  in  his  image  and  with  his  life 
in  their  veins.  One  story  of  the  creation,  preserved 
to  us  in  cuneiform  texts,  was  told  in  seven  tablets, 
known  as  the  Emini    Elil  series.     Of  these  the  first 


Cosmogony,  Prnnc\al  History    -o\ 

four  deal  witli  the  origin  of  chaos  and  its  monsters, 
the  birtli  of  the  gods  and  finall)'  the  victory  of  Bel 
over  Chaos,  tlie  emergence  of  order  out  of  confusion, 
h"ght  out  of  darkness,  and  the  creation  of  heaven 
and  earth.  The  fifth  tablet  a[)pears  to  contain, 
among  other  things,  the  creation  of  the  beasts  ;  the 
sixth,  the  creation  of  man  ;  and  the  seventh,  a  hymn 
of  praise  to  Bel,  the  creator,  with  a  summing  up  of 
all  his  work  of  creation.  The  creator  in  this  cos- 
mogony is  Bel-Marduk,  of  liabylon  ;  but  clearly 
there  lay  behind  this  another  and  older  cosmogony 
which  ascribed  the  creation  of  the  world  to  Bel- 
Enlil  of  Nippur ;  and  behind  this  again,  or  side  by 
side  with  it,  apparently,  still  a  third  cosmogony,  of 
Eridu,  in  which  Ea  was  the  creator.  One  trace  of 
this  threefold  origin  can  be  found,  perhaps,  in  the 
fact  that  chaos  appears  under  three  names,  Tiamtu, 
Apsu  and  Mummu,  which,  while  here  designating 
separate  individuals,  yet  represent  one  and  the 
same  concept. 

The  form  of  the  Babylonian  creation  myth, 
which  affected  the  cosmogony  of  the  Priest  Code, 
was  not  the  earlier  or  earliest  form  from  Nip- 
pur or  Eridu,  whatever  those  forms  inay  have 
been,  but  the  version  of  Bab\lon,  in  which  I5cl- 
Marduk  was  the  creator.  Corresponding  to  the 
seven  tablets  of  this  Babylonian  myth  are  the  seven 


202  Early  Hebrew  Story- 

days  of  the  Hebrew  scheme  ;  to  its  threefold  chaos 
correspond  the  triple  names  of  the  primeval  waste  in 
the  second  verse  of  our  narrative,  Tehovi,  Thohii  and 
Bohu.  Out  of  this  waste,  dark  and  watery,  were 
brought  light  and  order,  the  firmament  of  heaven 
was  spread  out  above  and  the  earth  beneath,  with 
its  growth  of  grass  and  herbs  and  trees,  and  the  sun 
and  moon  and  stars  were  made  and  set  in  the  heav- 
ens.    All  this  corresponds  in  a  way  with  the  first 

■'  four  tablets  of  the  Babylonian  series,  which  also  tell 
of  the  victory  over  chaos,  its  reduction  to  order,  its 
division  into  heaven  and  earth,  made  out  of  the  two 
halves  of  Tiamtu,  the  formation  of  sun  and  stars, 
etc.  The  purely  mythological  part  of  the  Baby- 
lonian cosmogony,  of  which  we  have  found  re- 
flections elsewhere  in  Hebrew  literature  in  the 
struggle  of  Yahaweh  with  the  monster  of  the  abyss 
and  her  horrible  comrades,  whom  he  destroys  and 
smites  through,  tramples  upon  and  divides  in  pieces, 
percisely  as  in  the  Babylonian  myth,  is  eliminated, 
but  the  cosmogonic  idea  is  retained.  So  likewise  in 
the  fifth  day,  according  to  the  Hebrew  cosmogony, 
God  creates  the  beasts,  and  in  the  sixth, man,  these 
two  days  thus  corresponding  in  their  content  to  the 
fifth  and    sixth  tablets   of   the    Babylonian  series. 

\  The  seventh  day  of  the  Hebrew  scheme  reminds 
one  faintly  of  the  summing  up  of  the  creative  acts 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History   -o3 

in  tlic  hymn  to  Hcl  llic  creator,  whicli  constitutes 
the  scventli  tablet  of  the  Babylonian  scries.  But 
in  the  Hebrew  we  have,  also,  another  element  intro- 
duced, the  Sabbath,  which,  while  itself  of  Baby- 
lonian origin,  has  nevertheless,  so  far  as  our  present 
knowledge  goes,  no  connection  with  creation  in 
Babylonian  thoyght  and  mythology. 

The  Sabbatli,nvas  in  Babylonian  use  a  dies  mfas- 
tus,  on  which  nothipg  should  be  undertaken,  a  day 
of  abstention  and,  in  so  far,  a  day  of  rest,  occurring 
on  the  first,  seventh,  tourteenth  and  twenty-first  of 
each  month.  There  were  also,  apparently,  occas- 
sional additional  sabbaths  (as,  in  one  month  of 
which  we  possess  the  calendar,  on  the  19th),  some- 
thing like  the  saints  daj-s  or  occasional  holy  days  of 
our  calendars.  Out  of  this  original  diis  ncfastiis  the 
Hebrew  Sabbath  developed  into  a  true  day^f  rest, 
which  was  a  holy  day  in  our  sense  of  the  term,  occur- 
ring on  each  seventh  day.  The  cosmogony  of  the 
Priest  Code  marks  that  stage  of  religious  develop- 
ment when  the  Sabbath  had  become  an  essential 
feature  of  the  Hebrew  religious  system,  so  import- 
ant that  it  was  conceived  of  as  part  of  the  scheme 
of  creation  ;  a  conception  which  combined  readily 
and  naturally  with  the  sevenfold  scheme  derived 
from  the  old  Babylonian  cosmogonic  myth. 

As  already  pointed  out,  the  differences  between 


204  Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  Babylonian  myth  of  creation  (or  myths,  for 
from  Greek  and  cuneiform  fragments  we  know,  as 
already  stated,  of  the  existence  of  more  than  one 
such  myth,  albeit  there  was  a  close  family  resem- 
blance among  them )  and  the  cosmogony  of  the 
Priest  Code  are  far  greater  than  the  resemblance. 
There  is  a  lofty  spirituality  and  a  wholesome,  sane 
reasonableness  in  the  latter  which  lift  it  altogether 
out  of  the  atmosphere  of  that  Babylonian  mythology 
from  which  it  had  its  birth.  Nevertheless  the  marks 
of  its  origin  are  sufficiently  clear  to  leave  no  doubt 
as  to  its  descent. 

It  seems  probable  that  the  ancient  Babylonian 
cosmogony,  reflected  in  the  highly  advanced  and 
philosophical  presentment  of  the  author  of  the 
Priest  Code,  had  at  an  early  period,  before  the 
advent  of  Israel,  found  its  home  in  Canaan,  and 
that  it  was  out  of  forms  of  this  myth,  modified  and 
changed  in  the  thought  of  Israel,  and  especially  of 
its  higher  and  more  spiritual  thinkers  through 
many  generations,  that  a  later  writer  constructed 
ultimately  his  majestic  presentation  of  the  creation 
of  the  world,  so  singularly  unlike,  in  respect  of  its 
monotheism,  its  spirituality  and  its  sanity,  to  any 
cosmogony  with  which  we  are  acquainted  in  any 
country.  This  view  of  the  origin  of  our  cosmogony 
finds  confirmation  in  the  fragments    of  Phcenician 


Cosmogony,  IVimcxal   History   -^^5 

cosmogonies  which  have  been  handed  clown  through/'  '' 
Greek  sources.  Here  again  we  find  reflections  of 
the  l^abylonian  myth,  with  local  variations  and 
clevcl()[)mcnts.  Here  Tianilu  reappears  as  Tautlic, 
and  by  the  sitle  of  this  representation  of  chaos  we 
have  another,  called  ]?aau,  which  is  manifestly 
identical  with  the  BoJiii  of  the  second  verse  of 
Genesis. 

The  fact,  furthermore,  that'there  arc  traces  in  the -> 
Prophets,  Psalms  and  other  later  literature  of  the 
existence  among  the  Israelites  of  myths  and  legends 
similar  to  those  which  are  represented  in  the  Baby- 
lonian cosmogonies,  showing  us,  as  it  does,  the 
manifold  contact  of  Israelite  thought  with  the  -" 
thought  of  Habylonia,  gives  additional  evidence  of 
the  relation  of  the  cosmogony  of  the  Priest  Code 
to  that  contained  in  the  Babylonian  cosmogony  of 
the  Eninna  lilil  tablets.  I  have  already,  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter,  called  attention  to  the  not  infre([uent 
references  to  the  great  monster  of  the  deep,  Rahab, 
wiio,  if  iu)t  in  naine,  at  least  in  thought,  reminds 
one  strikingly  of  the  I^abylonian  mytiiology,  and 
the  contest  represented  in  Babylonian-Assyrian  art 
between  Marduk-Bel  and  the  dragon.  In  Isaiah 
LI,  9,  we  have  Rahab  and  the  dragon  and  Tchoin, 
all  made  use  of  in  a  passage  which  reminds  us  of 
the  contest  of    Marduk    acrainst    Tiamtu    and    her 


2o6  Early  Hebrew  Story 

comrades.  It  was  Yahaweh  who,  in  days  of  yore, 
in  the  ages  of  the  most  remote  antiquity,  shattered 
Rahab,  put  to  shame  the  dragon  and  dried  up  the 
waters  of  Tehom.  In  Psalm  LXXXIX,  lo,  and 
following  verses,  Yahaweh  not  only  defeats  Rahab 
but  puts  him  to  shame,  treating  him  like  carrion ; 
which  reminds  one  of  the  wanton  insult  that  Mar- 
duk  heaps  on  his  defeated  foe,  Tiamtu,  on  whose 
body  he  leaps.  In  Psalm  LXXIV,  12,  Yahaweh, 
after  having  split  the  deep  into  two  parts,  precisely 
as  Marduk  split  Tiamtu,  crushes  the  heads  of  dark- 
ness, shatters  the  heads  of  Leviathan  and  gives 
them  as  meat  to  the  jackals.  Here  again  we  have 
the  threefold  representation  of  chaos,  Avith  the 
contumelious  treatment  of  the  vanquished  foes, 
whose  heads  are  cast  to  the  jackals  ;  a  peculiarly 
Palestinian  touch. 

In  Job  XXVI,  11-13,  we  find  possibly  still 
another  of  those  elements  which  occur  in  the 
Babylonian  cosmogonies.  In  the  Babylonian  myth 
the  half  of  Tiamtu  which  is  used  as  the  heavens  is 
fastened  by  bolts.  Here  these  fastenings  appear  as 
the  pillars  of  heaven.  Here  the  three-fold  chaos  is 
represented  by  the  sea,  Rahab  and  the  fleeing  ser- 
pent. In  Isaiah  XXVII,  i,  this  same  three-fold 
chaotic  foe  whom,  in  the  Babylonian  cosmogony 
Marduk,    in    the    Hebrew    Yahaweh,    smites    and 


Cosmogony,  l^imcval  History   ~^7 

destroys,  is  called  Leviathan  the  fleeing  serpent, 
Leviathan  the  coiled  serpent  and  the  dragon  in  the 
sea.  There  arc  other  passages  which  show  how 
firmly  fixed  this  conception  of  the  monster  of  the 
abyss  was  in  Hebrew  thought,  and  how  clearly  the  ^ 
thought  of  that  monster  was  derived  from  the 
similar  Babylonian  monster.  But  my  object  in 
these  lectures  is  not  to  deal  with  Hebrew  literature 
at  large,  but  with  the  early  Hebrew  stories  or  the 
stories  contained  in  the  early  books  of  the  Bible, 
and  especially  Genesis. 

Besides  the  cosmogony  contained  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  which  represents,  as  stated,  an 
advanced  scientific  thought,  we  have  in  the  second 
and  third  chapters  another  cosmogony  of  a  very 
different  type,  a  uaive  folklore  tale  of  creation  and 
the  story  of  the  first  man,  handed  down  to  us  in  that 
early  Jud.xan  narrative  which  we  know  as  J.  Here 
we  have  no  chaos  of  land,  half  water,  out  of  which, 
by  the  spirit  of  God  breathing  upon  it,  the  world  is 
created.  The  simple  thought  of  this  folklore  cos- 
mogony goes  back  no  further  than  the  existence  of 
the  land  itself.  No  explanation  of  that  is  vouch- 
safed. The  land  was  there  and  this  land  is  the  land 
of  Palestine  —  a  dry,  barren  land,  in  which  water  is 
not  an  enemy,  but  a  friend,  which  must  depend  for 
its  fertility,  not  upon  streams  and  floods,  but  upon 


'OS         Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  rain  which  God  gives  and  which  cannot  produce 
without  the  hard  toil  of  man.  In  its  entire  outlook 
this  cosmogony  is  very  different  from  that  of  the 
first  chapter.  Unphilosophical  it  certainly  is,  and 
naive,  but  fascinating.  If  the  thought  is  altogether 
childlike,  we  yet  find,  if  I  may  so  express  it,  the 
pure  and  spiritual  child  discussing  the  great  problems 
of  the  world  and  life  with  an  innocent  simplicity 
which  cannot  fail  to  be  instructive  to  the  grown 
man.  But  if  the  coloring  of  this  cosmogony  is  char- 
acteristically Palestinian,  in  the  barrenness  of  the 
land,  which  requires  rain  and  the  toil  of  man  that  it 
may  produce,  there  is,  nevertheless,  evidence  of  the 
foreign  origin  of  parts  at  least  of  the  story  which 
has  come  down  to  us  so  completely  Hebraized.  It 
does  not,  of  course,  follow  that  because  a  thought 
or  fancy  is  found  in  Egypt,  Babylonia,  India  or 
Greece  it  may  not  also  be  native  to  Canaan.  There 
are  certain  primeval  ideas  which  we  find  in  the  folk- 
lore of  many  countries  and  which,  so  far  as  the  ideas 
themselves  are  concerned,  might  as  well  have  origin- 
ated in  Canaan  as  have  been  borrowed  from  any 
other  source.  The  mere  resemblance  of  ideas  is  not 
in  itself  an  evidence  of  borrowing.  So  the  idea, 
expressed  in  our  story  of  Eden,  that  the  first  man 
lived  in  a  state  of  happiness  and  in  intimate  relation 
with  God,  or  the  gods,  is  not  an  uncommon  concep- 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -09 

tion.  Wc  find  similar  ideas  in  many  places.  The 
Eijyptians  even  placed  their  paradise  to  the  east,  as 
did  the  Hebrews,  a  thought  in  itself  natural,  inas- 
much as  the  east  is  the  point  of  the  rising  of  the 
sun.  It  is  the  treatment  of  this  theme  in  other  re- 
spects, so  different  from  the  treatment  of  the  same 
theme  in  Egypt,  which  proves  that  the  Hebrews  did 
not  derive  their  ideas  with  regard  to  Eden  from 
Egypt. 

Now,  while  much  in  this  story  may  be  classed  as 
universal  primitive  thought,  we  have  also  certain 
car-marks  which  indicate  unrnistakably  a  Babylonian 
connection  for  some  certainly  of  the  fundamental 
thoughts  of  our  talc.  The  park  or  garden  which 
God  plants  and  in  which  he  sets  the  man  whom  he 
creates,  is  far  away  in  some  remote  land  off  to  the 
cast,  out  of  which  and  about  which  flow  the  great 
streams  of  the  earth.  This  garden-park,  or  the 
region  in  which  it  stands,  is  named  Eden.  But 
Eden  is  a  Babylonian  word  —  the  name  of  a  part  or 
perhaps  parts  of  that  rich  plain  of  Babylonia  famous 
for  its  fertility,  which  God  seemed  to  have  planted 
like  a  garden  on  the  earth  and  which  was  the 
model  surely  of  the  perfect  garden  where  man  first 
dwelt  :  or  rather,  perhaps,  the  name  Eden,  which  is 
a  Babylonian  word,  is  used  for  that  whole  region  in 
which  God  planted  a  garden,  for  in  the  text  it  is 


2IO         Early  Hebrew  Story 

not  "  the  garden  of  Eden,"  but"  a  garden  in  Eden  " 
which  is  mentioned.  Furthermore,  out  of  Eden 
went  a  river  to  water  the  ground,  and  thence  it  was 
divided  and  became  four  heads  of  water.  Two  of 
these  have  names  which  have  not  been  identified ; 
two  are  the  well-known  names  of  the  rivers  Tigris 
and  Euphrates.  In  Eden,  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  we 
have  local  features  which  connect  the  story  unmis- 
takably with  Babylonia. 

It  does  not  necessarily  follow  from  this  that  the 
Hebrews  thought  of  the  garden  of  Eden  as  lying 
in  the  plain  of  Babylon.  The  whole  geographical 
conception  of  these  chapters  is  crude  and  primitive 
in  the  extreme.  So,  for  instance,  all  the  great  rivers 
come  from  the  same  source.  It  makes  no  difference 
where  one  sees  them  now ;  they  all  started  from  the 
same  place.  The  description  of  the  countries  which 
are  connected  with  these  rivers  is  simple  and  unlet- 
tered. There  is  the  land  of  Havilah,  that  myste- 
rious territory  about  which  all  that  the  narrator 
knows  is  that  thence  come  gold  and  the  onyx  stone. 
There  is  the  land  of  Kush,  which  is  encompassed 
by  the  river  Gihon.  Apparently  seas  and  rivers  are 
confused  with  one  another,  after  the  manner  of  sim- 
ple, rude  men  ignorant  of  geography.  The  descrip- 
tions are  as  vague  as  many  of  those  of  the  faraway 
lands  to  the  east,  which  one  meets  in  the  Arabian 


Cosmogony,  I^rinic\al   Ilistorv   -'' 

Nights.  This  being  the  case,  one  is  inchnetl  to 
ask  whether,  after  all,  the  name  Eden  and  the 
idea  of  the  perfect  and  fertile  garden  having  been 
derived  from  Babylonia,  the  locality  of  the  garden 
was  not  pushed  up,  in  the  vague  geography  of  the 
narrator,  into  those  mysterious  mountains  of  the 
north,  among  which  later  the  Ark  of  Noah  rested, 
and  where  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  took  their  rise. 
We  shall  sec,  presently,  that  the  idea  of  an  abode 
of  God  far  away  in  the  north  was  common  in 
Hebrew  thought. 

With  regard  to  the  rivers  of  paradise  it  has  been 
suggested  that  the  number  four  is  connected  with 
a  representation  which  we  sometimes  find  in  early 
Babylonian  art  of  a  four-divided  stream.  One  is 
reminded,  likewise,  of  the  four  corners  of  the  heav 
ens  and  the  four  sections  of  the  earth  which  arc 
characteristic  of  Babylonian  thought.  But  without 
this  there  is  enough  in  these  chapters  to  show  us 
that  the  fundamental  and  characteristic  traditions 
at  the  bottom  of  this  cosmogony  are  Babylonian. 
Doubtless  these  traditions  wandered  into  Palestine 
from  the  east,  in  that  period  of  Babylonian  domin- 
ion of  which  I  have  had  occasion  to  speak  so  often, 
as  having  made  such  a  [jrofound  and  many-sided 
impression  on  the  religion  and  thought  of  the 
Palestinian  wcstland. 


212  Early  Hebrew  Story 

In  several  particulars  this  story  bears  marks  of  a 
very  early  origin.  Possibly  one  of  these  evidences 
of  early  origin  is  found  in  the  reference  to  the  posi- 
tion of  Ashur  in  the  fourteenth  verse  of  the  second 
chapter.  Hiddekel,  that  is,  the  Tigris,  is  here  rep- 
resented as  flowing  to  the  east  of  Ashur.  Now 
this  is  true  of  the  old  capital  city  of  Assyria,  from 
which  the  whole  country  was  named  Ashur,  but 
it  is  not  true  of  the  country  itself,  nor  of  the  cities 
of  Calah  and  Nineveh,  which  were  the  centers  and 
representatives  of  Assyrian  power  from  about  1300 
B.  C.  onward.  It^is  possible  of  course  that  the  nar- 
rator may  have  made  a  geographical  error  in  this 
statement,  or  that  he  was  thinking  of  the  Assyrian 
possessions  which  lay  between  him  and  the  Tigris, 
and  therefore  in  a  rough,  general  way  spoke  of  the 
Tigris  as  eastward  of  Assyria,  while  in  reality  it  lies 
to  the  west.  In  view  of  the  fact,  however,  that 
Ashur,  the  old  Assyria,  actually  lay  on  the  west 
bank  of  the  Tigris,  and  therefore  had  the  Tigris 
on  its  east,  it  is  not  unnatural  to  suppose  that 
the  Ashur  here  meant  is  the  city  Ashur  and  that 
this  story  took  shape  at  a  time  when  Ashur  was 
Assyria,  before  the  seat  of  empire  was  removed  to 
Calah,  and  Assyria  became  a  country  on  the  east 
bank  of  the  Tigris.  At  least  it  shows  a  time  when 
Ashur  stood  for  Assyria  with  the  outside  world. 


Cosmogony,  l^iincxal   History   -'3 

The  story  of  Eden  was  evidently  popular  among 
the  Hebrews,  and  we  have  several  references  to  it  in 
later  literature.  In  the  Book,at  E/ckiel,  in  the  6th 
century  H.  C,  the  story  is  told  with  a  different  ap- 
plication, or  a  different  coloring  (Ezekiel  XXVIII, 
II,  ff).  Here  Tyre,  or  the  land  of  Tyre,  is  Eden. 
Ezekicl  is  directed  to  take  up  a  lamentation  upon 
the  king  of  Tyre  and  say  to  him  :  "  Thou  hast  been 
in  Eden,  the  garden  of  God."'  The  beauties  of 
paradise  are  represented  as  the  civilized  commercial 
products  of  the  famous  and  luxurious  city  of  Tyre, 
—  gems,  treasures  and  costly  stuffs.  The  expulsion 
from  Eden  is  the  overthrow  of  the  king  of  Tyre, 
the  representative  of  his  people,  by  the  Babylonian 
power  as  a  punishment  for  the  sins  of  luxury  and 
wantonness.  This  passage  may  be  evidence  of 
the  existence  among  the  Jews  of  a  form  of  the 
Eden  story  influenced  by  Phoenician  thought.  The 
imagery  and  the  purely  figurative  treatment  of  the 
story  in  this  passage  are,  of  course,  Ezekiel's  own 
fancy.  The  Eden  story  seems  to  have  appealed  to 
him  with  peculiar  force,  and  the  last  chapters  of  his 
prophecy,  from  XL  onward,  in  which  he  outlines 
the  new  Utopian  Jewish  state,  are  influenced  b)'  the 
thought  of  the  primitive  paradise  in  Eden.  Other 
writers  of  the  same  or  later  periods  also  show  the 
influence  of  the  Eden  story  in  occasional  imagery. 


I 

\ 

214  Early  Hebrew  Story 

and  especially  in  their  references  to  the  garden 
of  God.  Evidently  the  story  was  a  popular  one 
among  the  Hebrews,  for  which  reason  the  Prophets 
freely  made  use  of  the  thought  and  of  imagery 
drawn  from  it.  The  connection  of  Eden  with  Tyre 
in  the  passage  of  Ezekiel  quoted  above  suggests, 
what  we  shall  find  to  have  been  true  in  some  other 
matters  of  cosmogony  and  primitive  history,  that 
the  Phoenicians  also  possessed  an  Eden  story  drawn 
originally  from  Babylonia.  Probably  in  this  case, 
as  in  the  case  of  other  of  the  early  stories  in  Gene- 
sis, our  story  of  Eden  in  the  second  and  third 
chapters  is  only  one  of  several  forms  of  the  story 
which  were  current  in  Canaan  and  the  neighboring 
countries  in  the  early  days. 

Up  to  the  present  time  no  story  corresponding  to 
the  cosmogony  in  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis 
and  no  story  of  Eden  has  been  found  in  Babylonia. 
On  the  other  hand,  as  pointed  out,  this  Hebrew 
story  of  the  creation  of  man,  his  home  in  Eden,  his 
fall  and  his  expulsion,  is  full  of  thoughts,  words  and 
imagery  which  were  evidently  drawn  from  Baby- 
lonian sources,  and  we  have  here  also  espisdoes 
which  are  unmistakably  identical  with  espisodes  in 
Babylonian  myths  which  have  come  down  to  us. 
The  question  arises :  Was  there  any  one  myth  or 
legend  in  Babylonia  which  corresponded  in  general 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History   -'5 

to  our  Hebrew  story  of  Eden,  or  have  we  in  this 
cosmogony  and  in  the  story  of  Eden  a  Canaanite- 
Hebrew  development,  into  wliich  arc  woven  recol- 
lections and  suggestions  from  various  Babylonian 
myths  ? 

Before  wc  attempt  to  answer  this  question  let  us 
analyze  the  Hebrew  story  more  fully.  The  story 
of  the  creation  of  man  himself,  so  naively  told  in 
the  second  chapter,  in  such  striking  contrast  with 
the  high  spiritual  thought  of  the  first  chapter,  is,  one 
may  say,  a  world  thought  and  need  not  be  referred 
particularly  to  Babylonia  or  Palestine.  It  is  the 
out-thinking  of  primitive  man  when  he  asks  himself 
the  question  :  Of  what  is  man  created  ?  Dead,  he 
returns  to  earth.  Therefore,  out  of  the  earth  he 
came  ;  and,  as  one  makes  vessels  out  of  the  potter's 
clay,  earth  mixed  with  water,  so  God  made  man. 
Now  there  are  two  things  on  which  manifestly  the 
life  of  man  depends  :  one  of  these  is  blood.  If  the 
blood  be  poured  out  of  a  man's  veinsTTlie  man  is 
dead.-.  It  is  clear  therefore  that  blood  is  IjXe.  That 
is  a  thought  which  finds  repeated  expression  in  the 
Old  Testament  in  Hebrew  sacrificial  use,  in  Hebrew 
legislation,  in  Hebrew  thought  and  customs.  In 
one  of  the  Babylonian  stories  of  creation  which  has 
come  down  to  us,  man  is  represented  as  being  made 
of  clay  in  the  image  of  God.     That  clay  Marduk 


2^6  Early  Hebrew  Story 

mixed  with  his  own  blood,  and  so  gave  life  to  man. 
Man  is  therefore  a  blood-kinsman  of  God.  The 
same  conception  is  found  in  some  of  the  South  Sea 
islands.  The  other  something,  the  presence  of 
which  in  the  body  constitutes  life,  is  the  breath  or 
spirit.  If  the  breath  goes  out  of  a  man,  his  life  has 
gone  out  of  him.  It  is  the  latter  idea  which  finds 
expression  in  our  cosmogony.  The  same  depend- 
ence of  man's  life  on  God,  the  same  relation  of  man 
to  God  which  is  expressed  in  the  Babylonian  story 
under  the  representation  of  the  blood  of  God  mixed 
with  clay  to  make  man,  appears  in  this  story  under 
the  form  of  the  breath  of  God  breathed  into  the 
clay  which  He  had  made.  The  life  of  man  was  the 
breath  of  God  himself.  This  is  a  very  simple  and 
very  natural  out-thinking  from  man's  observation  of 
his  own  constitution.  It  may  very  well  be  native 
in  Palestine  and  there  is  no  ground  for  saying  that 
it  was  derived  from  some  other  people. 

The  relation  of  man  and  God,  as  represented 
throughout  this  whole  story,  is  very  simple.  That 
man  was  made  in  the  image  of  God  is  understood 
in  the  most  naturalistic  manner,  and  the  picture  of 
the  Almighty  is  extremely  anthropomorphic. 
Almighty  and  all-wise  He  is  not  in  the  philosophical 
sense ;  but  almighty  and  all-wise  in  the  conception 
of  the  simple  man  merely  means  greatly  mightier 


CosHK^gony,  Primc\al   History    -'7 

and  greatly  wiser  than  man  himself.  That  is  tlic 
highest  that  primitive  man  can  think  when  he  is 
thinking  out  the  being  and  nature  of  God,  and  that 
is  the  representation  of  God  which  is  given  licre. 
He  does  not  at  first  succeed  in  finding  the  right 
mate  for  man.  He  must  come  and  look  to  see 
what  man  is  doing.  He  walks  in  the  garden  in  the 
cool  of  the  evening.  There  is  also  something 
capricious  about  His  decrees,  and  His  word  is  not 
an  absolute  word.  He  tells  man  that  if  he  eats  of 
the  tree  of  life  he  shall  surely  die.  But  this,  it 
proves,  is  not  the  case.  God  has  told  man  this  to 
prevent  him  from  becoming  altogether  like  Him- 
self. This  conception  of  God  can  be  paralleled 
throughout  in  Palestine  today.  The  plain  people, 
Moslems  and  Christians  alike,  think  of  God  in 
precisely  this  way  ;  nor  is  such  thought  peculiar  to 
Palestine,  it  is  the  thought  of  the  simple  man 
everywhere 

Any  one  who  has  visited  Oberammcrgau  will 
remember  the  paintings  of  God  the  Father  which 
are  so  common  above  the  doors  of  the  houses,  or 
used  to  be,  at  least,  twenty-five  years  ago.  They 
were  painted  by  a  rude  genius,  who  paid  in  kind  for 
lodging,  food  and  drink,  principally  the  latter. 
Now,  to  say  that  such  representations  are  merely 
figurative,  and  endeavor  to  express  pictorially  the 


2i8  Early  Hebrew  Story 

idea  of  the  fatherhood  of  God  is  to  misstate  the 
case.  These  pictures  of  God  the  Father  represent 
really  the  real  and  literal  idea  which  the  common 
people  possess  of  God.  In  Palestine  today  the 
conception  of  God  among  the  common  people  is 
yet  more  realistic  and  grosser,  and  you  will  even 
hear  the  people  speak  in  the  most  naturalistic  man- 
ner of  the  members  of  God  and  swear  by  the  parts 
of  His  physical  body  in  a  way  which  makes  it  very 
plain  that  they  think  of  God  as  constituted  physi- 
cally as  we  are  constituted ;  that  man  in  the  literal 
sense  is  made  in  God's  image. 

A  primitive  conception  of  the  relation  of  name  to 
fact,  characteristic  of  all  oriental  thought,  is  brought 
out  in  Adam's  naming  of  the  beasts,  which  indi- 
cates and  establishes,  also,  the  dominion  of  man 
over  the  beasts  about  him.  God  creates  the  ani- 
mals and  brings  them  one  by  one  to  man,  who 
names  them.  Now  name  and  thing  are  one.  To 
know  the  name  is  to  know  the  essence  of  the  thing. 
In  ancient  Babylonian  magic,  for  instance,  to  name 
the  creature  or  the  demon  which  caused  the  sick- 
ness was  to  show  one's  power  over  that  creature  or 
demon,  and  thus  to  be  able  to  master  it  and  over- 
come the  sickness.  To  know  the  mysterious  name 
of  God  was  to  possess  a  power  over  the  universe 
itself.     To  know  the  name  of  a  demon  was  to  put 


Cosmogony,  Priinc\al   History    -'9 

that  demon  uiulcr  j-our  power.  So  for  man  to 
name  the  beasts  was  to  put  them  under  his  power. 
The  expression  by  Adam  of  the  names  of  the 
beasts  put  those  beast.;  in  subjection  under  him 
who  had  spoken  their  names  to  Yahaweh.  The 
name  of  the  first  man,  Adam,  is  itself  a  common 
noun  meaninjT  man  or  mankind,  a  fact  which  shows 
us  that  we  are  dealincj  with  speculations  about  the 
creation  of  man  not  a  man.  It  is  not  a  name  that 
ever  appears,  to  my  knowledge,  as  a  personal  name 
in  Old  Testament  times,  and  to  the  end  Hebrew 
writers  were  conscious  of  the  fact  that  Adam  was 
not  a  true  name,  sucli  as  it  became  with  the  change 
of  language  in  later  Christian  times,  but  merely  the 
word  "  mauki'id."  This  is  made  very  plain  in  the 
later  Priest  Code,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  chap- 
ter. The  heading  of  this  section  reads  as  follows  : 
"  The  book  of  the  generations  of  Adam."  Then 
follows  the  statement:  "In  the  day  that  God 
created  man,  in  the  likeness  of  God  made  he  him. 
Male  and  female  created  he  them  and  blessed  them 
and  called  them  Adam."  We  meet  with  this  same 
phenomenon  in  various  national  cosmogonic  leg- 
ends. The  story  of  the  origin  of  man  or  of  the  par- 
ticular race  is  told  as  the  story  of  a  man  who  bears 
the  name  vian,  sometimes  in  an  archaic  or  slightly 
differentiated    form.     Frequently   the  .jiamc    of    a 


220         Early    Hebrew   Story 

nation  is  itself  the  name  for  inaji.  Possibly  we  find 
this  latter  phenomenon  in  the  case  of  Edom.  At 
least  the  words  Adam  and  Edom  have  the  same 
root  letters. 

One  universal  assumption  we  find  in  this  story, 
namely,  that  the  language  of  the  people  telling  the 
story  was  the  primeval  language,  spoken  by  God 
Himself.  This  assumption  appears  in  the  account 
of  the  naming  of  the  animals  by  Adam.  It  appears 
in  Adam's  own  name,  given  him  by  God,  the 
Hebrew  word  for  man.  Here  we  have  also  one  of 
those  plays,  on  names,  those  etymological  puns 
which  are  so  numerous  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Adam,  man,  we  are  told,  was  made  out  of  adamah, 
earth.  The  derivation  of  woman  from  man  is  the 
theme  of  another  etymological  episode.  A  com- 
mon Hebrew  word  for  man  is  isJi.  The  Hebrew 
word  for  woman  is  issha.  Etymologically  this  ap- 
pears to  be  a  different  root  from  the  similar  sound- 
ing isJi,  man,  but  primitive  etymology  depends 
only  on  resemblances  of  sound,  and  so  we  find 
isshah  made  a  derivative  of  ish,  and  a  story  founded 
on  this  etymology  of  the  creation  of  woman  from  a 
rib  of  man.  This  story,  which  is  a  man's  story, 
homo-sexual,  is  an  interesting  example  of  the 
methods  of  early  thought.  Man  measures  the  uni- 
verse by  himself.     He  explains  the  relations  of  all 


Cosmogony,  IVimcxal  History  --' 

about  him  by  what  he  knows  of  himself.  Woman 
depends  upon  man  and  woman  was  made  for  man. 
Out  of  man  himself  she  was  made,  flesh  of  his  flesh 
and  bone  of  his  bone.  Very  nam  is  this  HteraHsm 
by  which  she  is  actually  built  out  of  a  bone  of 
Adam.  The  rib  seems  to  be  chosen  as  the  material 
for  her  construction,  because  ribs  are  relatively 
numerous,  and,  therefore,  superfluous  in  man's 
composition.  No  other  bone  could  well  be  spared, 
but  of  the  ribs  more  than  one  might  be  taken  with- 
out sensible  loss  ;  and  so  from  man's  rib  was  woman 
made,  who  was  to  be  part  of  man.  All  this  is 
primitive  folklore,  and  in  it  we  find  no  evidences  of 
a  special  connection  with  Babylonia  or  any  other 
country. 

In  the  account  of  the  relation  of  man  to  the  beasts, 
before  woman  was  created,  there  is  a  suggestion  at 
least  of  resemblance  to  the  story  of  the  wild,  primi- 
tive man,  Eabani,  in  the  Babylonian  Gilgamcsh 
legend.  Eabani  was  made  out  of  clay  by  the  god- 
dess, who,  in  that  story,  is  the  creative  force,  because 
in  her  rather  than  in  the  god  is  the  womb  of  life. 
At  the  outset  Eabani  consorted  with  the  beasts  of 
the  field.  ''  He  ate  grass  with  the  gazelles,  he  drank 
water  with  the  cattle  of  the  field,  he  amused  himself 
with  the  animals  of  the  water."  Out  of  this  condi- 
tion he  was  raised  into  true  manhood  by   entering 


222 


Early    Hebrew   Story 


into  relation  with  a  woman,  a  priestess  of  Ishtar, 
who  came  to  entice  him.  It  was  by  finding  a  mate 
in  her  that  he  developed  out  of  a  being  like  the 
beasts,  and,  leaving  them  behind,  went  with  her  to 
the  place  of  Gilgamesh  to  become  his  friend  and 
fight  and  strive  with  him.  Evidently,  in  the  thought 
of  the  Hebrew  story,  Adam  was  at  first  like  Eabani. 
No  true  mate  was  found  for  him,  however,  among 
the  beasts  of  the  field.  His  manhood  required  a 
helpmeet  of  his  own  kind,  bone  of  his  bone,  flesh 
of  his  flesh.  The  resemblance  in  this  case  is  suffi- 
cient to  suggest  a  connection  with  Babylonian  story, 
but  not  sufficient  to  prove  that  connection  with 
certainty. 

There  is,  in  the  Hebrew  story,  an  openness  and 
freedom  in  the  discussion  of  the  part  which  man 
and  woman  are  meant  to  play  toward  one  another 
and  the  union  which  makes  the  two  one,  so  foreign 
to  our  modern  manner  of  thinking  that  the  reader 
of  today  scarcely  takes  in  its  full  meaning.  The 
physical  union  indicated  escapes  his  notice.  The 
text  suggests  to  him  a  union  of  another  sort,  a 
union  of  a  more  spiritual  nature.  Indeed  so  readily 
does  the  language  here  used  lend  itself  to  the 
thought  of  a  spiritual  union,  that  it  has  become  a 
proof-text  in  the  argument  for  monogamy,  and 
we  of  today  are  almost  amazed  that,  with  the  words 


Cosmogony,  IVimcval  History  --3 

of  this  chapter  before  him,  tlic  Hebrew  could  ever 
have  been  a  polygamtst.  We  have,  in  fact,  read 
into  the  words  more  than  was  really  originally  con- 
tained in  them.  We  have  seen  not  the  literal  sense 
and  the  original  thought,  but  a  spiritual  develop- 
ment from  the  possibilities  which  lay  in  that  orig- 
inal thought. 

In  the  relation  which  man  is  here  represented  as 
holding  toward  woman,  we  have,  apparently,  another 
of  those  incidental  evidences  of  the  great  antiquity 
of  this  story.  It  is  not  the  woman  who  leaves 
father  and  mother  and  cleaves  to  the  man,  but  the 
man  who  leaves  father  and  mother  and  cleaves  to 
his  wife.  It  would  seem  as  though  we  had  a  survi- 
val of  the  old  matriarchate,  that  relation  of  marriage 
of  which  we  have  an  example  in  the  Samson  story, 
where  the  woman  remains  with  her  tribe  or  clan  or 
family  and  is  visited  by  the  man.  The  offspring  in 
such  a  case  belongs  to  the  woman's  family,  not  the 
man's.  The  picture  of  the  relation  of  the  primitive 
man  and  woman  which  follows  is  drawn  from  the 
study  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes  in  childhood. 
What  the  narrator  sees  that  children  arc  in  their 
relations  to  one  another,  that  he  conceives  the  first 
man  and  woman  to  have  been,  except  only  that 
they  were  grown  up.  So  they  are  described  as 
Uoin<T  unclothed  without  sense  of  shame.    The  sense 


224  Early    Hebrew   Story 

of  shame  is  developed  in  connection  with  tempta- 
tion and  knowledge.  The  whole  is  pictured  in  a 
manner  appropriate  to  such  a  method  of  thinking. 
What  in  actual  men  and  women  is  developed 
through  slow  processes,  comes  to  the  first  man  and 
woman  at  once,  through  the  eating  of  the  fruit  of 
the  tree. 

Mingled  with  this  story  of  temptation  and  knowl- 
edge is  the  story  of  the  hostility  of  the  serpent. 
Here  we  have  two  elements  introduced  which  do 
not  seem  to  be  a  part  of  the  simple  primitive  folk- 
lore thought,  but  rather  elements  derived  from 
some  myth  or  other.  There  were,  according  to  the 
story,  two  trees  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  possessed 
of  strange  power.  The  fruit  of  the  one  gave  to  him 
who  ate  it  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  the 
fruit  of  the  other  endowed  man  with  immortality. 
There  is  a  series  of  Babylonian  magic  tablets  hav- 
ing their  origin  in  Eridu,  the  city  of  the  god  Ea,  in 
which  we  find  mention  of  magic  trees  and  magic 
plants  connected  mystically  with  the  abode  of  Ea 
in  Eridu  and  possessing  strange  properties.  To  be 
sure  somewhat  kindred  notions  connected  with 
trees  exist  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  but  the 
Babylonian  afifinities  already  suggested  in  this  cos- 
mogony make  one  suspect  that  we  have  here  a  sur- 
vival of  that  same  conception  of  the  magical  power 


Cosmogony,  Priinc\al   Ilistory  --5 

of  certain  trees  growing  in  some  particular  place 
which  is  exhibited  in  the  exorcism  tablets  from 
Ericlu.  This  suggestion  is  greatly  strengthened  by 
a  consideration  of  the  fragments  of  the  Babylonian 
Adapa  myth  which  have  come  down  to  us.  Our 
main  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  this  myth  is 
derived  from  clay  tablets  discovered  at  Tel  el- 
Amarna  in  Egypt.  These  had  been  used  for  pur- 
looses  of  study  by  Egyptian  scribes.  From  the 
presence  of  these  fragments  among  the  letters  and 
archives  at  Tel  el-Amarna,  it  was  evident  that  this 
myth  was  one  well  known  in  the  west,  throughout 
Syria  and   Canaan,  in  the  15th  century  B.  C. 

The  general  content  of  the  myth  is  as  follows : 
Adapa,  son  of  the  god  Ea  (it  will  be  observed 
that  the  locality  of  this  myth  also  is  Eridu),  has  re- 
ceived wisdom  from  his  father,  but  not  immortality. 
Adapa  is  the  guardian  of  the  shrine  of  Ea  in  Eridu, 
the  anointed  one.  It  is  his  duty  to  care  for  the 
needs  of  the  sanctuary,  h'ishing  in  the  sea  by 
I-lridu,  the  south  wind  strikes  him  suddenly  and 
(overturns  his  boat.  In  revenge  he  breaks  the  wings 
of  the  south  wind.  When  Anu,  god  of  heaven, 
hears  of  this,  he  sends  his  messenger  to  bring 
Adapa  before  him.  F.a  advises  Adapa  what  to  do 
to  avoid  punishment.  He  bids  him  put  on  a 
mourning  garment   and   secure  the  compassion  of 


226  Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  two  gods,  Tammuz  and  Gishzida,  whom  he  will 
meet  in  heaven  at  the  entrance  to  Ann's  palace. 
By  arousing  their  pity  he  will  secure  their  medi- 
ation with  Anu.  When  he  comes  into  the  presence 
of  Anu  he  will  be  offered  food  to  eat.  It  is  the 
food  of  death  and  he  must  not  eat  it.  He  will  be 
offered  water  to  drink.  It  is  the  water  of  death 
and  he  must  not  drink  it.  Adapa  does  as  he  is 
bidden,  wins  the  pity  and  mediation  of  Tammuz 
and  Gishzida  and  secures  mercy  from  Anu,  who, 
perceiving  that  Ea  has  made  him,  a  mortal, 
acquainted  with  knowledge  and  good  to  look  upon, 
resolves  to  give  him  also  immortality,  and  offers 
him  the  bread  and  water  of  life.  Following  the 
direction  of  his  father,  Ea,  Adapa  refuses  to  take 
what  is  given  him,  believing  that  if  he  eat  or  drink 
it  he  shall  surely  die ;  and  so  it  is  that  while  man 
has  knowledge,  he  has  yet  failed  to  secure  immor- 
tality. 

This  is,  of  course,  very  different  from  the  story 
which  we  have  in  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis.  We 
are,  however,  struggling  with  the  same  problem  : 
Why  does  man,  who  possesses  knowledge  like  the 
•  gods  and  is  made  in  their  image,  yet  differ  from 
them  so  materially  ?  After  a  brief  life  of  toil  he 
must  perish,  while  they  live  on  forever.  To  some 
extent  Ea  plays  in  the  Babylonian  story  the  same 


Cosmogoii)',   Primeval   llislory  --/ 

part  which  botii  Yahawch  and  the  serpent  play  in 
the  Eden  story.  The  connection  of  life  and  immor- 
tality with  the  friiil  of  the  trees  does  not  api^ear  in 
the  .\dapa  myth,  but  may  be  derived,  as  alrculy 
suggested,  from  other  stt)ries  which  we  have  from 
tlic  same  source,  namely,  from  Kridu. 

It  should  be  added  that  in  the  early  period  of  his- 
tory as  represented  in  the  l^ible  the  Hebrew  was 
not  conscious  of  any  true  immortality.  God  lived 
forever;  man  was  made  physically  in  the  image  of 
God  and,  like  God,  he  possessed  a  knowledge  which 
set  him  apart  from  the  beasts.  Only  in  this  was  he 
unlike  God:  that  his  life  was  limited  in  its  duration. 
It  was  at  a  very  late  period  that  the  conception  was 
developed  of  another  sort  of  relation  to  di\  inity,  of 
another  respect  in  which  man  was  made  in  the  image 
of  God,  namely  immortality.  Ijt  is  characteristic  of 
the  earlier  stage  of  thought  that  man  did  not  pick 
of  the  tree  of  life  and  live  forever. 

The  second  extraneous  clement  which  we  ncUice 
in  this  story  is  the  serpent.  There  is  a  Babylonian 
seal  cylinder  representing  two  human  figures  sitting 
one  on  cither  side  of  a  tree,  each  with  a  hand 
stretched  out  toward  the  fruit  of  that  tree.  Ikhind 
one  of  them  stands  erect  what  appears  to  be  the 
figure  of  a  serpent.  This  seal  has  been  frequently 
used  as  an  evidence  that  the  Babylonians  also  iiad 


228  Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  story  of  the  temptation  by  the  serpent,  which 
temptation  consisted  in  the  plucking  of  the  fruit  of 
a  tree,  precisely  as  in  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis. 
I  doubt  very  much  whether  there  is  any  connection 
whatsoever  between  the  representation  on  this  seal 
and  our  story  in  Genesis.  No  allusion  to  any  such 
story  has  been  found  in  Babylonian  literature  up  to 
the  present  time,  and  no  other  representation  in 
the  slightest  degree  resembling  this  in  that  respect 
has  been  discovered.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it 
is  rather  another  form  of  the  same  idea  which  is 
represented  by  the  genius  or  the  man  and  the 
genius  standing  by  the  tree  bearing  fruit,  a  com- 
mon representation  in  Babylonian  and  Assyrian  art. 
The  serpent  played  an  important  part  in  the 
later  religious  life  of  Israel,  as  I  have  pointed  out 
already,  and  in  this  regard,  also,  Israel  was  one  with 
the  nations  about  it.  As  we  meet  the  serpent  in 
mythology,  if  I  may  use  that  word  in  its  broadest 
and  most  general  sense,  he  is  sometimes  the  friend, 
sometimes  the  enemy,  of  man.  In  Israelite  story 
he  seems  to  be  conceived  of  as  the  enemy  of  man. 
To  be  sure,  the  brazen  serpent  to  which  the  wor- 
shipper looked  healed  him  from  evil,  but  the  evil 
from  which  he  was  healed  was  supposed  itself  to 
have  been  an  evil  brought  upon  him  by  the  ser- 
pent.    The  serpent  is  one  of  the  names  used  to  de- 


Cosmogony,  rriincval  History  --9 

scribe  the  great  monster  of  chaos,  the  monster  of  the 
abyss  or  deep,  with  whom  Yahaweh  contended  and 
whom  He  dashed  in  pieces.  The  serpent  is,  accord- 
ingly, identified  with  the  dragon.  Apparently  the 
^-samc  general  conception  prevailed  in  Babylonia, 
and  serpent  and  dragon  were  more  or  less  regarded 
as  identical,  if  one  can  judge  from  the  representa- 
tions which  appear  on  seal  cylinders  and  the  like, 
and  the  serpent  was,  therefore,  regarded  as  a  crea- 
ture inimical  to  man.  Whether  there  is  any  rela- 
tion to  Babylonian  thought  in  the  part  which  the 
serpent  plays  in  the  Eden  story,  is  not  clear.  It  is 
clear,  however,  that  whatever  foreign  connection 
the  story  of  the  serpent  may  have  had  in  its  ori- 
gins we  have  in  its  development  a  natural  expres- 
sion of  primitive  folklore,  the  attempt  to  explain 
that  instinctive  hostility  which  exists  between  man 
and  the  serpent.  Every  one  is  conscious  of  this 
antagonism  toward  the  serpent  on  the  part  of  man. 
Our  narrator,  who  expresses  the  folklore  and 
thought  of  his  jirople,  attempts  to  explain  this 
instinctive  hostility,  and  this  story  is  an  answer  to 
the  question :  Why  is  there  such  hostility  between  — 
man  and  serpent  ? 

We  have  in  this  story,  also,  a  further  thought  re- 
garding the  serpent,  of  the  same  simple  character, 
such  as  primitive  men    might   have  developed  any- 


230  Early    Hebrew  Story 

where.  It  is  a  wide-spread  and  natural  conception 
that  the  serpent  is  peculiarly  wise.  In  all  countries 
and  among  all  peoples  men  in  a  low  state  of  civiliza- 
tion admire  the  cunning  which  certain  animals  pos- 
sess as  the  consequence  of  instincts  and  powers 
which  man  does  not  possess.  The  way  in  which  the 
animal  ascertains  the  presence  of  danger  and  avoids 
it  is  mysterious  to  man,  and  is  therefore  ascribed  by 
him  to  some  supernatural  wisdom,  about  which  he 
tells  stories.  In  our  own  ancestral  folklore  thqj£x 
is  the  creature  peculiarly  endowed  with  wisdom. 
Among  the  colored  people,  of  our  own  country  at 
least,  we  find  the  rabbit  playing  a  similar  part. 
Everywhere  there  has  been  an  inclination  to  ascribe 
to  the  serpent  in  a  peculiar  decree  the  possession  of 
this  wisdom,  which  represents  a  certain  supernatural 
and  uncanny  power.  This  is  doubtless  due  to  the 
mysterious  life  and  being  of  the  serpent,  so  different 
from  that  of  man,  or  even  of  the  birds  and  quad- 
rupeds, to  the  strange  transformations  which  the 
serpent  undergoes,  his  mysterious  hiding-places,  his 
silent  gliding,  and  the  like.  In  these  things  primi- 
tive man  sees  an  evidence  of  a  wisdom  which  sur- 
passes his  own.  It  is  the  serpent,  therefore,  who 
knows  the  plan  and  counsel  of  God. 

But  why  does  the  serpent  go  upon  his  belly  and 
eat  dust,  while  man  walks  upright   and  the   other 


Cosmogony,  Priniexal   History  -3' 

beasts  move  on  four  legs?  Wliy  should  woman  so 
cleave  to  man,  suffering  at  his  hand  abuse,  and  yet 
more  than  his  willing  slave,  so  that  "her  desire  is 
unto  him?"  Why  is  it  that,  with  pain  and  agony, 
she  should  bring  children  into  the  world  and  yet 
more  than  willingly  do  so?  Why  is  the  toil  of  man 
so  hard  ?  The  beasts  find  their  food  ready  prepared, 
but  man  must  earn  his  living  by  the  sweat  of  his 
brow.  And  then  one  sees  a  touch  characteristic  of 
Palestine  :  Why  does  the  land  which  man  sows 
with  good  grain  bring  forth  thorns  and  thistles,  as 
the  land  of  Palestine  does  in  a  way  which  seems  to 
be  characteristic  peculiarly  of  itself?  These  various 
questions  also  find  their  answer  in  this  story. 
Clearly  the  story  itself,  as  we  now  have  it,  was  one 
of  slow  growth,  and  in  its  elements  it  is  of  compos- 
ite character.  In  its  final  shape  it  answers  not  one 
question,  but  many  :  the  reason  of  the  hatred  be- 
tween serpent  and  man,  of  the  degraded  condition 
of  the  serpent,  who  must  creep  on  his  belly  and 
eat  the  dust  of  the  earth,  of  the  painfulness  of 
child-bearing  on  the  woman's  part,  and  this  almost 
fruitless  toil  to  procure  his  living  from  the  ground 
on  the  man's  part.  All  these  things  result  from  the 
primeval  transgression,  by  which  man  sinned  against 
God  and  brought  the  curse  of  God  upon  him.  So 
the  story  stands  in  its  completed  form  ;  but  it  would 


232  Early  Hebrew  Story 

seem  that  behind  this  lie  many  individual  thoughts 
and  suggestions  representing  different  episodes, 
different  stories,  which  have  at  last  been  united 
into  one  whole.  This  was  the  way  in  which,  doubt- 
less, these  larger  stories  were  developed.  We  have 
them  now  as  one  whole.  Sometimes  we  can  in  part 
separate  the  strands  which  have  been  woven  to- 
gether ;  at  other  times  they  are  inextricably  inter- 
twined, and  it  is  impossible  to  separate  the  parts. 

By  the  serpent's  advice  woman  first  and  then 
man  took  from  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge 
of  good  and  evil,  and  their  eyes  were  opened,  they 
were  no  longer  children,  but  at  once  men  and 
women,  knowing  good  and  evil,  and  this  knowledge 
brought  upon  them  a  curse.  In  this  story  the  nar- 
rator shows  himself  conscious  of  that  which  each 
one  of  us  feels:  of  the  superior  power  of  the  man 
over  the  child,  and  at  the  same  time  of  the  exist- 
ence of  another  something,  very  good,  which  every 
man  loses  in  his  growth  from  childhood  into  man- 
hood- .That  superior  power  and  wisdom  was  a 
possession  which  man  had  clearly  attained.  God 
became  jealous  therefore  lest  man  should  become 
like  Himself;  the  same  fear  which  expresses  itself 
in  the  story  of  the  tower  of  Babel.  This  same  fear 
shows  itself,  also,  in  the  Babylonian  myth  of  Adapa, 
and  as  Ea,  by  fraud,  prevents  man  from  jDartaking  of 


Cosmogoii) ,   Priiiic\al    llislory  -o3 

the  food  of  life,  so  that  he  may  become  like  God  and 
live  forever,  so  here  Yahaweh  decides  for  the  same 
reason  to  drive  man  out  of  the  garden  of  Eden. 

The  story  closes  with  an  episotle  entirely  and 
characteristically  Babylonian.  God  placed  cast- 
ward  of  the  garden  of  Eden  the  cherubim.  Now 
we  have  in  the  first  chapter  of  Ezekiel  a  descrip- 
tion of  cherubim,  from  which  we  know  that  the 
Hebrews  designated  by  this  title  those  composite, 
winged  monster  forms  which  stood  before  the 
Habylonian  temples.  It  is  not  clear  that  we  have 
tliis  name  applied  to  them  in  luibylonia,  but  it 
would  seem  probable  that  both  name  and  idea 
were  derived  from  the  same  source.  These  cheru- 
bim, winged  bulls,  lions  or  the  like,  stood  in  front, 
that  is,  to  the  eastward  or  southward,  of  the  tem- 
ple, at  the  gate  of  the  dwelling  of  God,  and  were 
indications  that  God  dwelt  at  that  spot,  of  which 
they  also  were  guardians.  Eden  is  here  conceived 
of  as  being,  like  these  temples,  a  dwelling-place  of 
God.  Once  man  dwelt  within  in  close  communica- 
tion with  God.  God  is  still  there,  and  the  cheru- 
bim are  the  indication  of  His  presence  and  the 
guardians  of  the  sanctity  of  His  abode  from  which 
man  has  been  driven  forth.  In  the  chapter  of 
I'>.ekiel  referred  to  God  comes  from  His  abode  in 
the  north  mounted  upon  the  cherubim.     One  may 


234  Early  Hebrew  Story 

well  ask  whether  in  the  thought  of  the  prophet  that 
mysterious  garden  of  God,  where  man  had  once 
dwelt  with  God  but  which  was  now  closed  against 
the  entrance  of  man  by  the  cherubim,  was  not  the 
dwelling  of  Yahaweh  on  the  mountain  of  God  in 
the  far  distant  north,  where  the  streams  of  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates  had  their  source. 

And  now  we  are,  perhaps,  in  a  position  to 
attempt  some  sort  of  answer  to  the  question 
whether  this  second  cosmogony  and  the  story  of 
Eden  contained  therein  were  derived  from  a  Baby- 
lonian source.  Yes  and  no.  It  would  seem,  if  our 
analysis  be  correct,  that  various  Babylonian  myths 
have  yielded  material  which  has  been  utilized  in 
our  story  and  that,  besides  the  elements  drawn 
from  these  myths,  we  have  also  material  derived 
from  Babylonian  sources  in  another  way  —  the 
name  £den,  the  suggestion  of  a_garden  located  by 
the  sources  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates  but  in 
a  region  fertile,  like  Babylonia,  the  picture,  drawn 
primarily  from  Babylonian  temple  use,  of  the  cher- 
ubim. On  the  other  hand,  we  have  abundant 
material  which  is  native,  and,  so  far  as  our  present 
information  goes,  it  would  seem  to  me  probable 
that  this  cosmogony  and  this  story  grew  upon 
Canaanite  soil,  utilizing  in  its  composition  Baby- 
lonian material  of  various  descriptions. 


Cosmogony,  PrimcMil  History  -35 

In  the  Eden  story  wc  have  seen  examples  of  the 
attempt  which  the  primitive  Hebrews  and  presum- 
ably, also,  their  Canaanitc  predecessors,  made  to 
answer  those  questions  about  the  world  which 
cvcfv  man  must  ask  himself.  The  tale  o(  Cain  and 
Abel,  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Genesis,  contains 
further  examples  of  this  same  sort  of  story-building. 
Some  of  the  proper  names  which  we  meet  with  in 
these  early  chapters  are  full  of  meaning  and  arc 
evidently  themselves  Hebrew,  like  Adam.  The 
name  of  the  first  woman,  I^iic,  was  at  the  time  of 
the  reduction  of  these  stories  to  a  Hebrew  form,  no 
longer  a  good  Hebrew  word.  There  is,  however,  a 
suggestion  in  the  word  of  some  connection  with  the 
Hebrew  root  which  means  life.  I  venture  to  sug- 
gest that  the  Hebrews  took  over  the  name,  which 
was  a  real  word  in  a  kindred  Semitic  language, 
from  the  people  preceding  them  in  the  occupation 
of  the  country.  It  was  close  enough  in  sound 
to  Hebrew  to  suggest  connection  with,  the  root 
meaning  life.  At  the  same  time  it  was  not  a  known 
Hebrew  word.  The  general  perception  of  the 
meaning  of  the  root  is  indicated  by  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  word  given  in  Genesis  III,  20:  "Adam 
called  his  wife's  name  Eve  {chavvah),  because  she 
was  the  mother  of  all  life  {chay)."  When  we  come 
to  deal  with  the  names  in  some  of  the  other  stories, 


236  Early  Hebrew  Story 

it  becomes  still  more  clear,  from  the  unintelligibil- 
ity  of  those  names  in  Hebrew,  that  we  have  primi- 
tive pre-Israelite  material,  just  as  such  names  as 
Corinth,  Olympus,  Hymettus,  and  many  more  in 
Greece  are  inexplicable  in  Greek,  because  they  go 
back  to  the  pre-Hellenic  period.  But  every  nation 
undertakes  to  explain  the  proper  names  which  it 
uses,  and  some  of  the  quaintest  and  most  curious 
little  touches  which  we  have  in  Genesis  are  those 
etymological  stories  intended  to  account  for  the 
use  of  this  or  that  name.  In  most  cases  the  ety- 
mologies are  themselves  false,  and  in  all  cases  the 
stories  are  clearly  invented  to  account  for  the 
word. 

In  Cain  and  Abel  we  have  two  names  which  are 
unintelligible.  Cain  is  very  naively  explained  in  the 
text  as  connected  with  the  Hebrew  root  kanaJi, 
"  ^°,S^t>  "  so  that  Eve  is  made  to  say  at  his  birth  : 
"  I  have  gotten  a  man  with  the  Lord."  The  name 
in  its  Hebrew  form  reminds  one  strikingly  of  the 
Kenites,  who  in  early  times  wandered  back  and 
forth  among  the  Hebrews,  not  occupying  settled 
habitations,  and  it  seems  possible  that  the  story,  in 
some  of  its  features,  may  have  been  affected  by  the 
resemblance  of  the  name  of  Cain  to  that  of  these 
Kenites,  whose  poverty-stricken  and  miserable  life 
was    always    before    the    eyes    of    the    peasants   of 


Cosmogom,   Primeval   History  -37 

ralcstinc.  l''or  the  name  Abel  no  attcniijt  is  made 
to  find  an  explanation  in  our  story.  The  name  is 
in  fact  .strikini;ly  like  tiie  Babylonian  Ablu,  son,  " 
antl  one  is  ten4)ted  to  supi)ose  that  originally,  in 
pre-liebrew  tunes,  it  had  that  signification,  but  if 
so  our  narrators  have  lost  all  sense  of  its  original 
meaning. 

The  origin  and  the  original  meaning  of  tlie 
narrative  itself  are  not  clear.  Are  we  dealing,  in 
Cain  and  Abel,  with  two  peoples  and  their  feuds? 
In  the  wild,  half  savage  Cain,  wandering  in  the 
east-land,  afflicted,  it  would  seem,  by  the  curse  of 
God,  so  that  he  ma>-  not  even  till  the  ground,  we 
have  in  fact  a  picture  always  before  the  mind  of  the 
Palestinian  peasant  and  hcrdman.  These  wander- 
ing neighbors  of  theirs  to  the  eastward  are  precisely 
like  this  Cain.  They  are  murderers,  and  surely  the 
curse  of  God  is  upon  them  ;  and  yet  they  are  fearful 
to  deal  with,  so  that,  whatever  befall,  one  should  be 
careful  not  to  murder  one  of  them,  as  his  death  will 
surely  be  revenged  sevenfold.  Moreover,  they  have 
a  mark  upon  them,  put  there  by  God,  to  distinguish 
them  from  the  settled  j)casantry.  Precisely  what 
mark  or  characteristic  the  narrative  has  reference  to 
as  distinguishing  Cain,  is  not  altogether  clear.  In 
Leviticus  and  elsewhere  we  have  indications  that  at 
least  some   of   these    neighbors  with  whom    Israel 


238  Early  Hebrew  Story 

came  in  contact  were  distinguished  by  the  cutting 
of  the  corners  of  their  hair,  tattoos,  and  other  tribal 
signs.  It  was,  of  course,  an  old  idea  to  distinguish 
tribes,  races  and  families  by  some  particular  sign, 
just  as  the  Hebrew  was  distinguished  by  circum- 
cision. This  was  the  sign  given  by  God  to  distin- 
guish His  people,  and  we  may  well  suppose  that  by 
the  mark  put  upon  Cain  by  Yahaweh,  of  which  the 
narrator  speaks,  we  are  to  understand  some  peculiar 
tribal  sign.  But  it  seems  curious  that  it  should  have 
been  precisely  this  Cain,  who  is  a  wanderer  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  before  whom  the  very  ground  is 
cursed  so  that  it  may  produce  nothing  for  him  and 
who  lives  in  the  outer  desert,  who  is  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  narrative  described  as  the  tiller  of  the 
ground  as  over  against  Abel.  Abel  was  the  peasant 
herdman,  Cain  the   husbandman.     But  Cain  is  the 

^  husbandman  no  longer,  and  the  reason  why  he  is 
not  and  why  he  is  now  cursed  and  driven  out  into 
the  outer  wilderness  is  because,  once  prosperous 
and  well-to-do  and  a  tiller  of  the  ground,  he  slew 
Abel,  the  herdman.  I  suspect  that  this  is  a  touch 
of  imagination  which  points  the  moral.  It  may  be 
that  in  general  we  have  in  this  story  an  explanation 

V  of  the  condition  of  some  wild  folk  whose  name,  so 
like  that  of  the  Kenites,  came  to  be  connected  in 
the  thought  of  Israel  with  the  Kenites. 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -39 

Olio  is  tempted  to  think  that  one  clement  in  tliis 
story,  however,  is  an  answer  to  the  question  :  Why 
does  God  prefer  flesh  sacrifice  to  vegetable?  In 
actual  practice,  in  the  oldest  Hebrew  codes,  flesh 
sacrifice  is  the  sacrifice  desired  of  God,  the  meal  or 
vegetable  offering  (the  "meat  offering  "  of  the  King 
James  Version)  being  used  never  independently, 
but  only  in  connection  with  flesh  offering,  to  con- 
stitute a  full  meal.  We  have,  also,  in  this  story  an 
explanation  of  God's  relation  to  murder,  connected 
with  the  meaning  of  blood.  Blood  is  life,  and  life 
must  be  given  for  life.  It  is  the  duty  of  a  man  to 
take  vengeance  for  the  blood  of  his  kinsman  which 
is  shed  ;  but  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  where  there 
is  no  kinsman  to  avenge  that  blood,  therefore  blood 
will  not  be  avenged ;  for  the  blood  which  is 
unrevenged  by  the  avenger  of  blood  yet  has  the 
[lower  to  call  to  God  himself  for  vengeance.  While 
in  the  details  of  its  expression  peculiar,  this  is  in  its 
essentials  a  thought  suflficiently  common.  Let  one 
remember,  for  example,  the  murder  tests  in  medi- 
aeval Europe  and  the  superstition  according  to 
which,  on  the  approach  of  the  murderer,  the  corpse 
of  the  murdered  man  would  begin  to  bleed. 

As  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel  has  come  down  to 
us,  various  motives  and  possibly  various  tales  have 
been    welded    into    one    most    effective    whole — a 


240  Early  Hebrew  Story 

moral  story,  the  condemnation  of  the  murderer,  on 
whom  rests  forever  the  mark  of  God.  Murder  is 
the  one  thing  which  God  will  not  and  can  not  over- 
look. The  Cain  of  this  story,  it  should  be  added, 
seems  to  have  nothing  in  common,  or  at  least 
nothing  which  we  can  trace  in  common,  with  the 
Cain  whom  we  meet  in  the  genealogies  of  the  fifth 
chapter.  Very  likely  it  was  the  resemblance  of 
the  name  of  the  former  to  that  of  the  latter  which 
caused  the  latter  to  be  made  a  son  of  Adam  and 
Eve.  Outside  of  the  name  Abel,  also,  there  is 
nothing  in  this  story  which  suggests  a  connection 
with  any  known  Babylonian  source.  It  appears  to 
be  throughout  of  Canaanitic  origin. 

It  is  different  when  we  come  to  deal  with  the 
genealogies  which  undertake  to  account  for  the 
j^  imi'ive  ages  of  mankind. 

We  have  two  of  these,  one,  the  Yahawistic,  con- 
tained in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Genesis,  the  other, 
the  genealogy  of  the  Priest  Code,  contained  in  the 
fifth  chapter.  The  former  is  commonly  called  the 
Cainite,  and  the  latter  the  Sethite,  genealogy.  Be- 
hind both  of  them  there  were  doubtless  legends 
connected  with  the  various  individuals.  Traces  of 
some  of  these  legends  exist  in  the  Cainite  geneal- 
ogy. The  Sethite  genealogy  has  been  reduced  to 
its  lowest  form,  a  mere  skeleton  of  names,  ages  and 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -4' 

the  like.  It  is  the  second  or  Sethite  family  tree, 
however,  which  is  the  more  complete  in  the  matter 
of  names.  This  has  the  characteristic  marks  of  the 
priestl)-  document  in  its  repetitious  language,  the 
effi^rt  at  legal  precision,  the  schematic  form  in 
which  the  whole  is  thrown,  and,  finally,  the  fact 
that  precise  figures  are  given.  So-and-so  lived  so 
long  and  begat  a  son  ;  and  his  days  after  he  had 
begotten  this  son  were  so-and-so  many,  and  all  the 
days  that  he  lived  altogether  were  such  and  such 
a  number.  In  this  Priest  Code  genealogy,  which 
professes  to  give  the  descendants  of  Adam 
through  Seth,  we  have  ten  generations,  including 
Adam  at  one  end  and  Noah  at  the  other.  In  the 
Yahawistic  genealogy,  in  the  fourth  chapter,  which 
gives  the  descent  from  Adam  through  Cain,  we  have 
seven  generations,  including  Adam  at  one  end  and 
Lamech  at  the  other.  Now  in  the  Priest  Code, 
Lamech  is  the  father  of  Noah,  and  in  the  Yahawis- 
tic narrative,  inasmuch  as  Noah  plays  precisely  the 
same  part  as  in  the  Priest  Code,  it  may  be  assumed 
that  the  same  relationship  existed.  If,  then,  we 
add  to  the  Yahawistic  genealogy  Noah,  we  should 
have  in  this  list  eight  names  in  all.  Comparing  the 
two  lists,  we  shall  find  that  the  two  genealogies  are 
identical  at  both  ends,  and  practically  identical  in 
tiie    middle   also.     They  evidently   came  from  the 


242  Early  Hebrew  Story 

same  source  and  were  once  the  same.  The  two 
names  which  are  missing  in  the  Yahawistic 
genealogy  are  Seth  and  Enos,  who,  in  the  Priest 
Code,  are  the  son  and  grandson  of  Adam  respec- 
tively. The  Yahawistic  genealogy  knows  no  son 
of  Adam  named  Seth,  but  only  Cain.  This  Cain  is 
etymologically  the  same  as  Cainan,  which  appears 
as  the  fourth  name  in  the  Priest  Code.  The  next 
three  names  in  the  Priest  Code  and  the  Yahawist 
are  identical,  but  in  reverse  order.  In  the  Priest 
Code  the  order  is  Mahalaleel,  Jared  and  Enoch.  In 
the  Yahawist  it  is  Enoch,  Irad,  which  is  really  the 
same  name  as  Jared,  and  Mehujael.  In  the  Greek 
Septuagint  translation,  the  Mahalaleel  of  the  Priest 
Code  appears  as  Maleleel,  and  the  Mehujael  of  the 
Yahawist  as  Maiel.  Then  follows  Methuselah  in  the 
Priest  Code,  and  Methusa-el  in  the  Hebrew  text 
of  the  Yahawist,  but  in  the  Septuagint  Methu- 
selah, as  in  the  Priest  Code.  Finally  we  have  in 
both  genealogies  Lamech  and  Noah. 

It  would  seem  to  be  clear  from  this  comparison 
that  the  two  genealogies  depend  upon  the  same 
original ;  but  where  did  this  original  come  from  ? 
According  to  the  history  of  Berossus,  there  were  in 
Babylonia,  before  the  beginning  of  history,  ten 
primeval  kings  whose  reigns  were  of  enormous 
extent.     Up   to    the    present  time    no    Babylonian 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  Elistory  -43 

tablets  have  boon  found  which  give  this  tradition  or 
the  names  of  these  kings.  With  two  exceptions 
these  names  have  come  down  to  us  only  in  a  Greek 
form.  Of  some  of  these  names  no  one  has  yet  been 
able  to  offer  any  explanation.  There  are  others 
whose  Babylonian  form  can  be  restored  with  a  fair 
degree  of  certainty.  The  third  name  in  the  list  of 
Berossus  is  Amelon.  This  is  clearly  a  Greek  cor- 
ruption of  the  Babylonian  word  for  man,  ainclu. 
Turning  to  the  Hebrew  genealogical  list,  according 
to  the  Priest  Code,  we  find  that  the  third  name  is 
Enos,  which  is  a  Hebrew  word  for  man,  apparently 
a  translation  of  the  Babylonian  a)nclii.  The  fourth 
name  in  the  Berossus  list  is  Ammenon.  This  seems 
to  be  the  Babylonian  Ummanu,  artificer.  The  word 
Cainan,  which  corresponds  to  this  in  the  Hebrew, 
cannot  be  said,  properly  speaking,  to  be  a  noun  with 
a  significance  in  Hebrew.  As  stated  above  it  is  the 
name  Cain,  with  the  nominal  suffix  an  added. 
There  is  a  word  in  tiie  kindred  Aramaic  language, 
strikingly  similar  in  root  and  sound,  which  would 
correspond  substantially  in  meaning  with  the  Baby- 
lonian Amelu,  namely,  Cainai,  smith.  One  is 
tempted  to  suppose  that  we  have  here  a  translation 
of  the  Babylonian  Ummanu  which  has  preserved  a 
form  no  longer  existing  in  classical  Hebrew. 

The  seventh  name  in  the  list  of  Berossus  is  Edo- 


244  Early  Hebrew  Story 

ranchus,  or  Enedorachos.  This  is  evidently  the 
Babylonian  En-me-dur-an-ki,  about  whom  we  know 
something  from  Babylonian  cuneiform  inscriptions. 
He  was  a  famous  hero  of  the  primeval  time,  king 
of  Sippara,  the  city  of  the  Sun  God,  and  at  the 
same  time  a  soothsayer  priest,  initiated  into  the 
divine  mysteries,  the  secrets  of  heaven  and  earth. 
To  him  was  carried  back  the  origin  of  the  guild  of 
soothsayers,  the  interpreters  of  oracles  and  signs, 
and  his  name,  which  is  Sumerian,  means,  appar- 
ently, "  interpreter  of  heaven  and  earth."  The  cor- 
responding name  in  the  Hebrew  genealogy  is 
Enoch.  In  the  Priest  Code  he  and  he  alone  of  all 
the  primeval  kings  is  described  as  standing  in  a 
peculiar  relation  to  God.  "  He  walked  with  God 
and  he  was  not ;  for  God  took  him."  (Gen.  V,  24). 
In  the  story  of  the  Yahawist  he  is  the  son  of  Cain, 
and  his  name  is  also  the  name  of  a  city  which  Cain 
built.  The  name  Enoch  may  be  connected  with 
the  last  member  of  the  Babylonian  name  En-me- 
dur-an-ki,  anki.  It  has  been  suggested  also  that 
the  365  years  assigned  in  the  Priest  Code  as  the 
period  of  Enoch's  life  are  connected  with  the  sun 
year,  and  correspond  in  a  way  with  the  relation  of 
the  Babylonian  En-me-dur-an-ki  to  the  Sun  God  of 
Sippara,  While  Enoch  seems  to  be  identical  with 
the  latter  part  of  the  Babylonian  name,  En-me-dur- 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -45 

an-ki,  and  the  peculiar  piety  and  intimate  relation 
with  God  represented  in  the  Hebrew  story  may 
correspond  to  the  relation  to  the  divine  secrets 
expressed  in  the  Babylonian  story  of  En-me-dur- 
an-ki,  I  doubt  whether  the  last-named  clement  of 
connection— that  which  suggests  a  relation  in  the 
number  of  years  of  his  life  to  the  sun  period  — 
should  be  pressed. 

The  eighth  name  in  the  Berossus  list  is  Amemp- 
sinos,  which  seems  to  be  intended  to  represent  the 
Babylonian  Amel-Sin,  man  of  the  moon-god,  Sin. 
In  the  eighth  place  in  the  Hebrew  list,  comparing 
the  two  lists  with  one  another,  we  find  the  name 
Methusa-el  (better,  Methusha-el)  or  Methuselah. 
Methusha-el  is  also  a  good  Babylonian  name,  Mutu- 
sha-ili,  and  means  in  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  alike 
"male,  or  man  of  God."  What  the  second  part  of 
Methuselah  or  Mcthusha-el  is,  is  not  so  clear.  It 
seems  probable  that  wc  have  in  the  Hebrew  the 
Babylonian  name  Amel-Sin,  translated  as  to  its  first 
part  and  adapted  as  to  its  second.  In  the  tenth 
place  in  the  list  stands,  in  the  Berossus  narrative, 
Xisuthros,  the  Hasis-Adra  or  Nuh-napishtim  of  the 
cuneiform  tablets,  the  hero  of  the  Babylonian  flood 
myth,  and  in  the  tenth  place  in  the  Hebrew  list, 
Noah,  the  hero  of  the  Flood  story.  Evidently 
these  two  are  identical  and  the  Hebrew  name  Noah 


246  Early  Hebrew  Story 

is  the  first  part  of  the  name  Nuh-napishtim  of  the 
Babylonian  legend. 

These  points  of  similarity  are  sufficient,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  to  establish  the  connection  of  the 
Hebrew  legend  of  the  ten  forefathers  who  lived 
before  the  Flood,  and  whose  years  were  incredibly 
long,  with  the  Babylonian  legend  of  the  ten  prime- 
val kings  who  lived  before  the  Flood  and  whose 
ages  were  numbered  by  cycles. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  ages  of  the 
Hebrew  forefathers  have  come  down  to  us  in  three 
different  systems,  in  the  Hebrew  Masoretic  text, 
which  is  represented  in  our  English  Bible,  in  the 
Greek  Septuagint  translation,  and  in  the  Samaritan 
Hebrew.  Each  of  these  seems  to  represent  a  dif- 
ferent system,  from  which  it  would  appear  that  it 
was  not,  in  the  estimate  of  the  early  ages,  the 
literal  number  of  years  which  was  important,  but 
something  for  which  those  numbers  stood.  The 
system  represented  in  our  English  Bibles,  that  of 
the  Masoretic  Hebrew,  appears  to  have  been  based 
on  the  conception  that  the  world  would  last  four 
thousand  years.  Half  of  that  period  passed  be- 
tween creation  and  the  birth  of  Abraham.  From 
the  birth  of  Abraham  to  the  foundation  of  the 
Temple  there  was  another  thousand  years.  Ac- 
cording to  this  system,  the  year  of  the  birth  of  our 


Cosmogony,  Primeval   History  -47 

Lord  would  have  coincided  a|iproxinuitely  with  the 
end  of  the  world.  The  Septuagint  adds  to  this 
.scheme  almost  600  years  before  the  Flood,  while 
the  Samaritan  subtracts  350  years.  Enormous  as 
the  ages  of  the  primeval  ancestors  are  represented 
to  be  in  any  of  these  schemes,  they  are  modest 
in  comparison  with  the  Babylonian  chronology, 
which  reckons  the  ages  of  the  antediluvian  kings 
in  cycles  of  sars,  each  sar  equaling  3,6cxD  years. 
The  first  king  reigned  ten  sars,  the  next  thirteen, 
and  so  on,  making  an  average  of  twelve  sars  for 
each  king,  120  sars  or  432,000  years  in  all  before 
the  Flood. 

The  genealogy  of  the  Priest  Code  is  closer  to  the 
Babylonian  original  in  that  we  have  in  it  all  the  ten 
names.  The  simpler  folklore  which  we  have  in  the 
Yahawist  was  not  so  much  interested  in  the  precise 
number  ten  of  the  original  system  as  it  was  in  the 
tales  or  legends  which  connected  themselves  with 
the  individual  kings  or  forefathers.  It  was  the 
scribes  and  priests  who  preserved  carefully  the 
scheme.  It  is  the  folklore  tales  which  have  handed 
down  to  us  some  stories  about  these  antediluvian 
heroes  which  seem  to  represent  fragments  of  a  more 
extensive  lore  of  the  same  description.  Some  of 
these  fragments  of  stories  appear  to  represent  origi- 
nal civilization  legends  —  the  commencement  of  city 


248  Early  Hebrew  Story 

building,  the  division  of  men  into  those  that  occupy 
settled  residences  and  herdmen  who  wander  hither 
and  thither,  the  origin  of  musicians  and  musical 
instruments,  the  origin 'of  metal  workers.  In  some 
of  these  fragments  we  have  specimens,  also,  of  that 
etymological  myth-making  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  where  the  interpretation  of  the  name  has 
given  rise  to  a  story.  In  at  least  one  of  these 
fragments,  the  notice  of  Jubal,  the  father  of  musi- 
cians, we  have  the  reverse  practice,  where  the  name 
is  invented  to  account  for  the  fact.  Similar  myths 
and  legends  of  the  creation  of  the  world  and  the 
primeval  ancestors  existed  among  the  Phoenicians. 
In  those  legends,  as  they  have  been  handed  down 
to  us  from  Sanchoniathon  through  Philo  of  Byblos 
and  Eusebius,  we  find  an  undoubted  connection 
with  the  Babylonian  myths,  in  some  points  closer 
than  in  the  Hebrew  story,  and  yet  striking  differ- 
ences. The  Phoenician  legends  are  located  in 
Phoenicia  itself  and  we  even  have  an  Egyptian  ele- 
ment added  in  the  name  of  the  patriarch  Taautos, 
who  first  invented  writing  and  letters  and  who  is 
identified,  and  apparently  correctly,  with  the  Egyp- 
tian Thoth. 

In  the  Phoenician  cosmogony  and  primeval  his- 
tory we  can  also  identify  some  of  the  names  which 
appear  in  the  Babylonian  cosmogony,  translated  as 


Cosniogonv,   I'riincMil    History  -49 

ill  the  Hebrew.  The  Phcenician  legends  resemble 
the  folklore  of  the  Yahawist  rather  more  than  they 
lo  the  genealogies  of  tiie  Priest  Code  in  this :  that 
tuey  contain  civilization  tales.  In  one  riutnician 
scliemc  we  have  thirteen  ages,  showing  the  progress 
upward  of  civilization.  Man  was  first  a  mere  beast, 
li\ing  without  family  relations,  his  food  the  fruits 
that  grew  of  themselves.  Then  he  enters  into  a 
family  relation,  which  may  be  said  to  correspond  to 
the  story  of  the  creation  of  Eve  in  Genesis  as  the 
helpmeet  of  Adam.  Next  is  an  age  in  which  he 
produces  and  employs  fire.  Then  comes  the  age  in 
which  men  associate  themselves  into  organizations. 
With  chiefs  at  their  head.  Then  the  time  when  men 
began  to  occupy  settled  abodes,  to  build  huts  of 
reeds,  to  clothe  themselves  with  skins  and  to  ven- 
ture upon  the  water,  floating  on  logs.  Next  the  age 
when  man  learned  how  to  hunt  and  catch  the  beasts 
and  fishes.  Then  the  age  when  he  began  to  make 
himself  metal  tools,  with  which  the  better  to  build 
rafts  of  logs  and  fashion  hooks  and  weapons  to 
catch  the  fishes  and  kill  the  beasts.  In  the  eighth 
age,  having  learned  to  make  bricks  of  clay,  he  com- 
mences to  build  substantial  houses  ;  in  the  ninth 
age  to  cut  down  the  forests  and  plant  fruit  trees,  to 
till  the  ground  and  domesticate  animals.  The  tenth 
age  is  the  age  of  town-building.     The  eleventh,  fol- 


250  Early  Hebrew  Story 

lowing  this  period  of  association  of  men  in  towns, 
is  the  time  of  the  development  of  righteousness  anc 
justice  to  regulate  the  dealings  of  man  with  his  fe'- 
low  men.    In  the  twelfth  age  he  invented  the  alpha- 
bet and  committed  his  thoughts  to  writing.     One  of 
the  characteristics  of  the  thirteenth  age  is  the  dis- 
covery of  medicine  to  heal  his  ills.     It  is  uncertain 
how  much  of  this  scheme  is  due  to  the  influence  of 
Greek  thought  or  the  imagination  of  Greek  authors  ; 
but  from  the  Phoenician  stories  which  have  come 
down  to  us  through  Greek  authors  this  much  seems 
clear  :  that  there  existed  cosmogonies  and  primeval 
tales  kindred    to  those  which  we  find    among   the 
Hebrews  in  Canaan  and  unmistakably  kindred  also 
to  the  Babylonian  cosmogonic  and  primeval  myths. 
The  existence  of   such  stories  among  the  Phoe- 
nicians, similar  to   those  which    the   Hebrews  pos- 
sessed, appears  to  be  evidence  that  the  originals  of 
these  legends  came  into  the  whole  west-land  in  the 
early  period  of  Babylonian  domination,  long  before 
the    time  'of    the    Hebrew  conquest.     They    were 
adopted  by  the  Phoenicians,  Canaanites  and  other 
kindred  peoples  and  locally  adapted.     Sometimes 
further  material  was  added.     The  names  were  some 
of  them  translated,  some  of  them  merely  borrowed, 
and  corrupted  in   the  borrowing,  being  afterwards 
explained     etymologically    by    etymologies    which 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -5^ 

created  what  \vc  may  call  etymolagicaLjUyiliS.-- 
The  Yahawistic  folklore  story  represents  not  an 
earlier  stage  of  borrowing,  but  a  cruder,  more 
primitive,  more  native  treatment  of  the  material 
which  had  been  derived  from  Babylonia,  The 
I'riest  Code  represents  a  more  philosophical  treat- 
ment of  the  same  material  and  a  more  exact 
transmission.  Neither  one  represents  a  direct  bor- 
rowing. There  was  a  tendency  at  one  time  to 
suppose  that  the  Priest  Code  borrowed  much 
material  directly  from  the  Babylonians  at  the  time 
of  the  exile  and  later.  That  there  was  no  such  di- 
rect borrowing  in  this  case  is  clear,  among  other 
things,  from  the  complete  change  of  names  and 
from  the  general  agreement  of  the  names  which 
appear  in  the  Priest  Code  with  those  which  appear 
in  the  earlier  Yahawist  narrative. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  chapter  of  Genesis 
we  have  a  curious  fragment,  evidently  from  a  larger 
whole  which  was  mythological  in  character.  The 
sons  of  the  gods  saw  the  daughters  of  men  that 
they  were  good  to  look  upon,  and  took  them  wives 
from  all  whom  they  chose.  Out  of  this  union 
seem  to  have  been  born  the  mysterious  ncpJiilini, 
translated  "giants"  in  our  English  version  (VI,  4), 
The  compiler  of  the  history  of  Genesis  is  putting 
legends  and   fragments  of  legends  together,  with  a 


252  Early  Hebrew  Story 

view  to  giving  us  a  history  of  the  world.  This  frag- 
ment is  introduced  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
account  of  the  wickedness  of  the  world,  which 
resulted  in  its  destruction  by  the  Flood.  It  would 
appear  that  the  compiler  had  before  him  a  legend 
which  was  offensive  to  his  religious  belief,  because 
of  its  distinctly  polytheistic  character.  At  the 
same  time  it  was  a  well-known  story  and  one  which 
fitted  into  the  account  of  the  corruption  of  the 
world.  He  adopted  it  with  the  elimination  of  the 
offensive  polytheistic  elements,  which  resulted  in 
leaving  little  more  than  a  torso  of  the  original. 

Babylonian  mag^i^^  which  plays  a  very  large  part 
in  the  Babylonian  literature  which  has  come  down 
to  us,  was  derived  by  the  Semitic  Babylonians 
from  the  pre-Semitic  inhabitants  of  that  country, 
whom  we  generally  call  Sumerian.  To  the  last  the 
exorcisms  which  were  used  by  the  Babylonians  and 
Assyrians  continued  to  be  written  in  Sumerian, 
often  with  an  interlinear  translation,  evidence  that 
the  demons  were  Sumerians,  for  the  language  which 
they  understood  and  in  which  incantations  must  be 
spoken  was  the  old  Sumerian  tongue.  Moreover, 
the  names  of  those  demons  are  Sumerian.  The 
whole  system  of  Babylonian  magic  and  the  whole 
Babylonian  scheme  of  the  spirit  and  demon  world 
seem  to    have   been    derived  from   the  Sumerians. 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -53 

But  some,  certainly,  of  the  words  for  the  spirit  and 
demon  world  familiar  to  us  in  the  Hebrew  Bible 
antl  in  later  Hebrew  tradition  arc  also  Sumerian, 
as  has  already  been  pointed  out.  P\irther,  the 
details  of  Hebrew  magic,  so  far  as  wc  can  ascertain 
them  from  the  Bible,  seem  to  have  been  identical 
with  the  details  of  magical  rites  in  the  Sumerian 
incantations.  The  conception  of  the  demon  world 
and  the  magic  power  which  shows  itself  in  Hebrew 
ritual,  and  more  distinctly  in  an  occasional  Hebrew- 
story  and  prophetic  allusion,  was  in  its  elements 
essentially  of  Babylonian,  and  hence  primarily  of 
Sumerian,  origin.  Of  course  all  primitive  peoples 
hav'e  magical  ideas.  They  know  of  demons  and 
spirit  powers  which  must  be  appeased  and  the  like. 
What  is  meant  is  not  that  there  was  nothing  of 
that  sort  among  the  Hebrews  or  their  direct  ances- 
tors which  they  brought  with  them  into  Canaan, 
or  nothing  of  that  sort  among  the  ancestors  of  the 
Canaanites,  whose  civilization  and  whose  ideas  the 
Hebrews  borrowed  so  freely,  but  that  the  more 
elaborate  and  complete  system  of  the  Sumerians 
affected  at  an  early  period  all  this  region,  taking  up 
into  itself  such  existing  native  elements.  This  is 
the  rea.son  why  we  find  Sumerian  names  and  Sume- 
rian practices  reproduced  in  Hebrew  demonology 
and  magic.     I   fancy  that  the  underlying  matter  of 


254  Early  Hebrew  Story 

that  section  of  the  sixth  chapter  of  Genesis  which 
describes  the  union  of  men  with  beings  of  the 
spirit  world,  from  which  resulted  these  mysterious 
nephilim,  is  at  least  akin  to  the  Sumerian  teaching 
of  the  possibility  of  the  union  of  man  with 
demons  and  spirits.  Out  of  such  a  union  came 
strange,  weird  creatures,  the  same  conception  which 
we  have  in  the  later  Jewish  story  of  the  union  of 
Adam  and  Lilith,  or  in  those  rabbinic  tales,  accord- 
ing to  which  men  secretly  took  demon  wives  and 
had  children  by  them,  and  at  their  death-beds  were 
claimed  by  those  half  demon,  spirit  children,  who 
then,  and  then  only,  made  themselves  manifest. 
But  while  in  general  Hebrew  mythology  and 
demonology  are  dependent  upon  Babylonian  and 
early  Sumerian  demonology,  and  for  that  reason 
one  is  inclined  to  suspect  a  general  connection  in 
the  case  of  all  such  tales,  it  must  be  said  that 
there  is  no  evidence  in  the  peculiar  form  of  this 
present  fragment  or  in  the  words  used  in  it  of  such 
connection. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  in  Palestine  and 
Syria  the  common  people  believe  to  this  day  in 
the  possibility  of  intercourse  with  spirit  or  demon 
beings,  and  a  recent  traveller  mentions  at  least  one 
case  from  his  own  experience  where  a  child  was 
claimed  by  the  mother  and  supposed  by  her  neigh- 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -55 

bors  to  be  her  offspring  by  :xjif!,  or  spirit.*  This  is 
a  not  uiuisual  belief  among  primitive  people,  with 
their  anthro[)oniurphic  conception  of  God  and  the 
spirit  world,  but  such  a  practical  expression  of  the 
belief  is,  I  believe,  rare.  More  usually  such  unions 
are  attributed  to  people  of  an  earlier  time  or  of  a 
foreign  race,  and  are  connected,  as  here  (Gen.  VI), 
w  ith  stories  of  men  of  unusual  size  and  peculiar  or 
tliabolical  properties. 

So  much  has  been  written  in  recent  years  about 
the  story  of  the  Flood  and  the  relation  of  the  He- 
brew Flood  story  in  the  sixth  and  following  chap- 
ters of  Genesis  to  the  Babylonian  Flood  myth  in 
the  eleventh  book  of  the  epic  of  Gilgamesh  that  I 
may  pass  over  this  section  with  comparatively  brief 
mention.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  this  early  part  of 
Genesis,  we  have,  in  our  present  compilation,  two 
forms  of  the  Flood  story  woven  together,  the  one 
the  more  simple  folklore  tale,  the  other  the  more 
precise,  schematic  account  of  the  Priest  Code.  Ac- 
cording to  the  simpler  folklore  tale,  man  was  cor- 
rupt, whereupon  Yahaweh  decided  to  destroy  him  ; 
but  Noah  found  grace  in  His  sight.  So  He  bade 
him  and  all  his  household,  with  seven  of  each  sort 
of  clean  beasts  and  two  of  unclean  beasts,  to  come 
into    the    ark.     So    Noah    went    into  the    ark  and 


•  S.  I.  Curtiss,  in  "  Primitive  Semitic  Religion  Today." 


25^  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Yahaweh  shut  him  in,  and  after  seven  days  He  sent 
a  rain  which  lasted  forty  days  and  forty  nights, 
flooding  the  earth  and  lifting  up  the  ark  above 
it.  All  living  things  on  the  dry  land  died,  and 
only  Noah  and  those  with  him  in  the  ark  were 
left  alive.  Then  the  rain  was  restrained  and  the 
waters  subsided,  and  after  forty  days  Noah  opened 
a  window  of  the  ark  and  sent  out  a  raven,  which 
did  not  come  back,  then  a  dove,  which  returned 
because  it  found  no  resting  place.  After  seven 
days  he  sent  out  the  dove  again,  which  returned 
to  him  at  eventide  with  an  olive  leaf,  so  that  he 
knew  that  the  waters  were  abated.  After  seven 
days  he  sent  the  dove  out  again.  As  it  did  not 
return  he  removed  the  covering  of  the  ark  and 
looked  out  and,  behold,  the  face  of  the  ground  was 
dry.  So  he  built  an  altar  to  Yahaweh  and  offered 
burnt  offerings  to  appease  Him.  When  Yahaweh 
smelled  the  sweet  savor  He  was  pleased  and  said 
that  He  would  not  curse  the  ground  any  more  for 
man's  sake. 

The  lonsfer  and  more  elaborate  Priest  Code  nar- 
rative  ascribes  the  Flood,  as  does  the  Yahawistic 
story,  to  the  wrath  of  God,  on  account  of  the 
wickedness  of  the  earth.  It  gives  in  detail  the 
instructions  under  which  Noah  built  the  ark,  into 
which  he  was  to  take  two  of  each  sort  of  creature 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History   -57 

oil  the  earth,  male  aiul  female.  The  [irccise  date  of 
the  commencement  of  the  Flood  is  given.  The 
"Flood  is  here  the  result  not  merely  of  rain,  but  also 
of  the  opening  of  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep 
below  and  of  the  windows  of  heaven  above.  The 
precise  depth  attained  by  the  water  of  the  Flood  is 
given.  F^or  150  days  the  waters  prevailed  upon  the 
earth  ;  then  God  caused  a  wind  to  pass  over  the 
earth  to  dry  up  the  waters,  and  the  fountains  of 
the  deep  and  the  windows  of  heaven  were  closed. 
After  150  days  the  waters  decreased,  and  the  pre- 
cise date  on  which  the  ark  came  to  rest  on  the 
mountains  of  Armenia  is  given.  It  was  a  consider- 
able time  after  that,  however,  before  the  waters  had 
so  far  decreased  that  the  tops  of  the  mountains 
were  seen,  and  a  still  much  longer  time  before  tiie 
waters  were  finally  dried  up.  The  precise  dates  for 
all  these  events  are  given.  When  the  earth  was  at 
last  dry,  God  bade  Noah  and  his  family,  with  all 
the  living  creatures,  to  go  out.  As  the  sign  of  the 
covenant  which  God  established  with  men  that  he 
would  not  destroy  them  again  by  a  flood.  He 
placed  the  rainbow  in  the  heavens;  a  view  of  the 
meaning  of  that  phenomenon  curiously  similar  to 
that  which  we  find  in  Homer. 

In  the  Babylonian  story  also  the  F'lood  appears 
to  be    the  result  of  the  wickedness  of  man.     The 


25S  Early  Hebrew  Story 

world  was  full  of  violence,  and  so  the  heart  of  the 
mighty  gods  urged  them  to  make  a  flood.  A  coun- 
sel was  held.  Ea  reveals  the  plan  of  the  gods  to 
Nuh-napishtim,  or  Hasisadra.  He  bids  him  build 
a  ship  and  bring  "  the  seed  of  life  of  every  sort 
into  the  ship."  The  construction  of  the  ship  and 
its  measurements  are  given  in  some  detail.  Nuh- 
napishtim  was  divinely  told  when  to  enter  in. 
After  he  had  entered,  at  eventide  of  the  same  da}', 
the  rain  began.  (It  is  interesting,  by  the  way,  to 
notice  that  in  the  Babylonian  account  we  have  a 
ship  which  is  steered  by  a  rudder  ;  in  the  Hebrew 
we  have  a  box  in  which  everything  is  shut  up  —  the 
difference  between  a  people  used  to  navigation  and 
one  living  inland,  in  a  land  without  so  much  as  a 
navigable  stream.)  The  flood  was  accompanied 
with  terrible  phenomena,  which  filled  the  very  gods 
with  dismay,  so  that  they  sought  refuge  in  highest 
heaven  and  cowered  there  greatly  frightened.  Ish- 
tar  screamed  like  a  woman  in  travail,  full  of  anguish 
at  the  destruction  of  the  people  to  whom  she  had 
given  birth.  Six  days  and  nights  wind,  flood  and 
storm  overwhelmed  the  land.  When  the  seventh 
day  came  the  storm  ceased,  the  sea  lulled,  the  blast 
fell,  the  flood  ceased.  All  mankind  were  dead.  The 
tilled  land  was  become  a  waste.  Nuh-napishtim 
steered  his  vessel  to  the  mountains  of  the  coun- 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -59 

try  of  Ni/.cr,  which  were  visible  above  the  water, 
and  on  one  of  the  mountain  tops  the  vessel  was 
caught  and  made  fast  for  seven  clays.  Then  he 
sent  out  a  dove.  It  went  to  and  fro,  found  no  rest- 
ing place  and  returned.  He  sent  out  a  swallow. 
It  did  the  same.  A  raven  which  he  sent  out,  find- 
ing the  dead  bodies  on  the  water,  returned  not, 
wading  hither  and  thither,  croaking  and  feeding  on 
what  it  found.  Then  he  brought  everything  out  of 
the  ship  and  offered  sacrifice  to  the  gods.  The  gods 
smelled  the  sweet  savor  and  swarmed  about  the 
sacrifice  like  flies.  Then  Bel  first  discovers  that 
the  counsel  of  the  gods  had  been  revealed  and  that 
all  men  were  not  destroyed.  He  is  very  wroth, 
but  Ea  appeases  him  and  persuades  him  in  future 
not  to  cause  a  flood,  but  to  reduce  the  number  of 
mankind  by  wild  beasts,  by  famines,  and  by 
plagues.  Then  Bel  makes  Nuh-napishtim  and  his 
wife  immortal,  and  takes  them  away  to  dwell  at 
the  mouth  of  the   rivers. 

The  connection  between  both  the  Hebrew  stories 
and  the  Babylonian  myth  Is  unmistakable.  The 
differences  between  these  two  Hebrew  forms  of  the 
story,  taken  in  connection  with  their  similarity  to 
the  Babylonian  original,  indicate,  as  in  other  cases, 
not  a  direct  borrowing,  but  the  same  sort  of  deriva- 
tion which  I  have  already  suggested  for  other  tales. 


J 


26o  Early  Hebrew  Story 

The  Flood  myth  wandered  from  Babylonia  to 
Canaan.  At  the  time  of  Babylonian  supremacy  it 
was  part  of  the  lore  of  Canaan.  When  the  He- 
brews entered  the  land  they  absorbed  and  assim- 
ilated this  lore,  reproducing  the  old  myths  and 
legends  in  characteristic  Hebraic  forms. 

The  story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  in  the  eleventh 
chapter  of  Genesis,  bears  on  its  very  face  the 
evidence  of  Babylonian  suggestion  ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  so  far  as  we  know,  there  is  no  similar 
Babylonian  myth.  We  have  in  this  story,  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  word  Babel,  an  example 
of  that  curious  etymologizing  which  I  have  so 
often  referred  to.  Properly  Babel,  or  Bab-ilu,  to 
give  the  ordinary  Babylonian  form,  means  "  the 
gate  of  God."  It  is  here  interpreted  as  meaning 
"  confusion." 

Two  different  questions  are  answered  in  this 
Babel  legend,  as  we  now  have  it,  which  suggests 
that  we  have  two  stones  combined  in  one.  One  of 
these  stories  undertook  to  answer  the  question  : 
Why  do  men  speak  different  languages  ?  If  all 
people  are  derived  from  the  same  man,  what  is  the 
reason  that  men  now  speak  not  one  language,  but 
many?  The  second  question  which  engages  the 
attention  of  the  narrator  is  the  origin  and  purpose 
of   one    of    those    mighty   tower   pyramids   which 


Cosmogony,  Primeval  History  -6i 

existed   in  comicctioii  with  many  of  the  old   Baby- 
lonian temples. 

I  fancy  that  the  story  connects  itself  directly 
with  an  enormous,  half-ruined,  unfinished  ziggurat, 
which  stood,  in  the  period  preceding  Nebuchad- 
rezzar, one  does  not  know  for  how  many  centuries 
before,  in  the  imincdiate  neighborhood  of  _Babylon, 
at  Horsippa.  In  one  of  his  inscriptions  Nebuchad- 
rezzar says  of  tliis  ziggiirat  that  a  former  king, 
whose  name  he  does  not  mention,  had  built  it  and 
carried  it  up  to  the  height  of  forty-two  ells,  but 
had  never  completed  it.  It  had  long  since  fallen 
into  decay.  Its  water  conduits  had  become  useless, 
rain-?torms  and  tempests  had  penetrated  its 
unbaked  brick  work,  the  baked  brick  with  which 
its  terraces  were  covered  had  bulged  out  and  the 
unbaked  bricks  of  the  core  been  converted  into 
rubbish  heaps.  Any  traveler  in  Babylonia  must 
have  observed  this  striking  ruin  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  the  capital,  and  as  he  pondered 
over  the  meaning  of  these  strange  structures  in 
general  he  must  have  asked  himself  in  particular 
why  this  tower  of  such  enormous  size  was  never 
finished.  Whether  the  people  of  the  country  gave 
him  the  tradition,  or  whether  he  drew  the  answer 
out  of  his  own  imagination,  we  do  not  know  ;  but 
the  answer  is   found  in   a  story,  in  some  of   its  elc- 


262  Early  Hebrew  Story 

ments  not  unlike  those  stories  which  we  find  in 
Greek  and  other  mythologies,  of  the  attempt  of 
insolent  man  to  make  himself  equal  to  the  gods,  to 
p  ^'  _  contend  with  them  and  take  possession  of  high 
heaven  itself.  Man  sought  to  achieve  this  by 
building  a  tower  up  to  heaven  in  steps  one  above 
the  other,  and  God  interfered  by  confusing  the 
language  of  the  men  so  that  they  could  not 
speak  one  to  another,  and  thus  scattering  them 
into  different  nations. 

This  last  part  of  the  story,  perhaps  a  part  origin- 
ally of  a  separate  story,  connects  itself,  as  I  have 
•  said,  with  a  false  etymology  of  the  word  Babel  — 
an  etymology  of  a  type  not  uncommon,  where  an 
effort  is  made  to  read  out  of  a  word  an  explanation 
of  existing  conditions.  In  that  wonderful  city  of 
Babel  or  Babylon  men  from  all  nations  of  the  earth 
met  together.  One  could  see  all  costumes  and  hear 
all  languages.  It  was  in  our  sense  a  "  babel,"  a 
place  of  confusion  of  tongues.  There  were  in  it 
quarters  occupied  by  different  peoples,  where  you 
would  hear  only  the  languages  of  those  peoples. 
It  was  from  this  city  or  this  region  that  all  nations 
of  men  had  gone  out,  as  the  traditions  of  the  fore- 
fathers told.  Surely  their  dispersion  was  a  part  of 
that  same  confusion  of  tongues  of  which  one  had 
an    evidence     in    Babylon    itself.     As    men    were 


I 


CU)smogony,   Primeval   History  -^3 

divided  and  kept  weak  and  disunited  in  the  differ- 
ent quarters  of  the  city  by  the  fact  that  they  could 
not  communicate  with  one  another,  so  were  men  in 
liie  world  at  large  kept  from  uniting  into  one 
irresistible  mass  by  their  differences  in  language. 
This  confusion  of  tongues  was  the  work  of  God,  or 
rather,  probably,  in  the  original  story,  of  the  gods, 
lo  separate  men  one  from  another,  so  that  they 
miL^ht  not  be  able  to  achieve  a  work  which  would 
invade  heaven  and  overthrow  the  gods  themselves. 
As  I  have  said,  no  parallel  myth  or  legend  has  yet 
been  found  in  the  Babylonian  records;  and  indeed 
this  story  sounds  rather  like  travellers'  tales,  told 
by  simple  but  pious  Israelites,  who  had  visited  the 
distant  land  of  Babylon  and  brought  home  tales 
of  its  wonders  and  their  explanation  of  the  same, 
partly  as  they  heard  them  there,  partly  as  they 
themselves  expounded  them. 

The  names  of  the  nations  and  the  Hebrew  view 
of  their  affinity  one  to  another,  arc  presented  to  us 
in  the  tenth  chapter,  the  famous  table  of  the  nations, 
in  the  common  form  of  genealogies.  Here  again 
we  have  a  combination  of  two  elements  —  the  later 
Priest  Code  and  the  earlier  Yahawistic  narrative. 
Both  h.avc  been  reduced  almost  to  their  lowest  ele- 
ments, the  mere  skeleton  form  of  names ;  but  in  the 


2^4  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Yahawist  there  survives  one  fragment  of  what  was 
apparently  a  larger  story,  a  little  fragment  full  of 
fascinating  suggestions  about  Nimrod  the  mighty 
hunter.  Evidently  the  story  was  Babylonian  in 
origin.  Nimrod  has  not  yet,  however,  been  identi- 
fied with  any  certainty  in  the  Babylonian  cuneiform 
tablets. 

Both  the  Priest  Code  and  the  Yahawistic  list  in 
this  chapter  agree  in  a  three-fold  division  of  the 
nations.  The  more  simple,  less  learned  Yahawistic 
list  knows  only  the  conditions  close  at  hand.  Three 
elements  met  together  in  the  Palestinian  region : 
First,  the  Canaanites,  who  were  there  before  the 
Israelites  came  into  the  country,  and  who  became 
their  slaves ;  secondly,  the  Israelites,  who,  with  all 
the  children  of  Eber,  their  Hebrew  kinsfolk,  were 
descendants  of  Shem  ;  and  thirdly,  the  Philistines 
and  their  kinsfolk,  who  had  come  down  from  Asia 
Minor  or  from  the  islands  of  the  west,  the  people  of 
Japheth.  To  both  of  these  latter,  the  Israelites 
and  the  Philistines,  the  Canaanites  were  slaves. 
The  Canaanites  were  the  despised,  subject  people. 
The  cause  of  this  condition  is  explained  in  a  story 
in  the  ninth  chapter,  which  tells  of  the  shameless- 
ness  and  immorality  of  Canaan,  who,  seeing  the 
nakedness  of  his  father,  mocked  it  and  told  his 
brethren  about  it,  while  Shem  and  Japheth  took  a 


Cosmogony,  IVimcval  History  -^^5 

garment  and  laid  it  on  their  shoulders  and  went 
backward  and  covered  the  nakedness  of  their 
father.  When  Noah  knew  what  his  youngest  son 
had  done,  he  said:  "Cursed  be  Canaan  ;  a  servant 
of  servants  shall  he  be  unto  his  brethren."  Here 
the  Yahawistic  narrator  characterizes  the  Canaan- 
ites  as  a  shameless  and  immoral  people,  in  agree- 
ment with  those  constant  denunciations  which  are 
found  in  the  writings  of  the  Prophets.  It  is  a  testi- 
mony to  the  immoral  condition  of  the  city-dwelling 
Canaanites  whom  Israel  found  in  the  country  and 
whose  religion  and  immorality  alike  were  so  dan- 
gerous to  him.  His  sterner,  better  moral  sense 
leads  him  to  dissociate  himself  from  these,  and  in 
their  subject  condition  he  recognizes  the  punish- 
ment of  God  for  tlieir  shamelessness.  According 
to  our  stor)',  therefore,  the  Canaanites  are  sub- 
jected by  both  the  invading  races,  the  Israelites  and 
the  Philistines,  as  a  punishment  for  their  immo- 
rality and  shamelessness. 

The  more  educated  Priest  Code,  recognizing  the 
same  threefold  division,  takes  a  broader  view  of  the 
world.  It  tries  to  account  for  the  whole  world  of 
its  day.  To  the  Semites  or  Shemites  in  its  scheme 
belonged  not  only  Hebrews  and  Aramaeans,  but 
also  Babylonians,  Assyrians,  and  the  kindred  peo- 
ples of  Arabia.     With   Canaan  —  and   whoever  has 


266  Early  Hebrew  Story 

visited  the  coastlands  of  Canaan  or  studied  the  re- 
sults of  the  excavations  of  the  Palestine  Explora- 
tion Fund  in  the  cities  of  the  Shephelah  will  realize 
the  meaning  and  the  truth  of  this  —  is  associated 
^'-^gypt-  The  Egyptians,  and  Lybians,  and  their 
kindred  are  brethren  of  Canaan,  sons  of  Ham. 
Notable  is  the  greater  outlook  northward  of  the 
scheme  of  the  Priest  Code.  The  sons  of  Japheth 
include  here  not  only  the  Philistines  and  the  people 
of  the  isles,  but  the  people  of  the  far  west  and  of 
the  north,  the  Moschi  and  other  nations  in  Asia 
Minor,  of  whom  we  read  in  the  Assyrian  records, 
who  played  a  prominent  part  in  the  ninth  and 
eighth  centuries  B.  C.  Historically  and  geographic- 
ally these  tables  are  very  valuable.  They  are  also, 
perhaps,  one  of  the  best  evidences  of  the  meaning, 
not  only  of  genealogical  lists  in  general,  but  also 
of  the  stories  told  in  the  early  chapters  of  Genesis 
about  tribes  as  individuals.  In  that  sense  they 
serve  us  as  a  clue  to  unravel  the  later  tales  of  the 
ancestors  of  Israel. 

In  the  eleventh  chapter  the  Priest  Code  fur- 
nishes us  with  a  second  genealogical  table  of  na- 
tions, which  deals  more  closely  with  the  direct 
ancestry  of  the  Israelites  and  their  connection  with 
that  group  of  nations  for  which  the  author  recog- 
nized a  linguistic  and  race  kinship  under  the  name 


C.osmogonv,  I^imcval  History   -67 

Shcm,_JLt  is  this  name  Shcm,  ascribed  to  the  an- 
cestor of  this  group  of  nations,  from  which  we  have 
derived  the  word  Semitic  or  Shj^mitic,  which  we 
apply  to  Hebrews,  Babylonians,  Aramaeans,  Arabs 
and  Ethiopians  alike,  because  they  all  speak  lan- 
guages of  the  same  stock.  What  was  the  source  of 
the  material  used  by  the  author  of  the  Priest  Code 
in  this  table  is  not  at  all  clear.  The  scheme  is  in 
general  the  same  as  that  of  the  genealogy  of  the 
antediluvian  patriarchs  in  the  fiflh  chapter.  So- 
and-so  lived  so-and-so  many  years,  and  begat  so-and- 
so,  and  so-and-so  lived  after  he  begat  so-and-so 
so  many  years.  But,  unlike  the  former  genealogy, 
this  scheme  gives  us  a  sliding  scale  of  ages,  by 
which  we  arc  brought  down  from  the  excessive 
length  of  days  of  the  mythical  ancestors  to  the  still 
very  abnormal  but  relatively  natural  age  of  Abram. 
As  before  so  here  also  we  have  ten  names  in  the 
list,  commencing  with  Shem  and  ending  with 
Abram,  the  direct  ancestor  of  the  Hebrews,  with 
whose  history,  which  wc  have  already  discussed  in 
a  former  chapter,  the  second  section  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis  commences. 


^ 


LECTURE  VI 

THE  MORAL  VALUE  OF  EARLY  HEBREW  STORY 

IN  these  lectures  I  have  treated  early  Hebrew- 
story  precisely  as  I  should  treat  the  early  story 
of  any  people,  Romans  or  Greeks,  Egyptians, 
Babylonians  or  Chinese,  and  I  believe  that  this  is 
not  merely  the  only  honest  but  the  only  truly 
faithful  and  religious  manner  in  which  to  treat  this 
story.  Doubtless,  to  some  accustomed  to  another 
point  of  view,  such  a  method  of  handling  Bible 
tales  and  Bible  histories  seems  profane  and  shock- 
ing. There  is,  in  the  treatment  of  any  religious 
book,  a  tendency  to  set  that  book  apart  from 
worldly  things  and  to  surround  it  with  a  halo  of 
mystery  and  awe  which  obscures  its  real  character 
and  meaning,  its  true  origin,  and  its  proper  rela- 
tion to  the  present. 

The  traveler  who  visits  Oberammergau  to  see  the 
Passion  Play  finds,  or  used  to  find,  in  the  old 
convent  near  the  top  of  the  hill,  as  one  approaches 
the  village,  a  chapel,  one  of  the  sacred  spots  visited 
as  a  religious  rite,  a  sort  of  pilgrimage,  by  the 
peasant  folk  who  come  to  take  part  in  the  Passion 


1/ 


Moral  Valine  269 

Play.  The  point  of  adoration  in  this  chapel  is  a 
small  marble  figure  placeil  on  or  above  the  altar 
and  securely  fastened  by  a  metal  band,  that  no  one 
may  carry  off  a  treasure  so  precious.  This  little 
figure  has  been  kissed  black  by  countless  thousands 
of  worshippers.  The  reason  for  this  veneration  is 
that  it  fell  from  heaven.  In  this  case,  however,  as 
in  the  case  of  all  the  figures  that  fell  from  heaven 
with  which  I  am  acquainted,  whether  in  heathen 
antiquity  or  the  Christian  Middle  Ages,  the  hea- 
venly artists  showed  themselves  far  less  skilful  than 
the  better  grade  of  human  artists.  To  this  fact 
ignorant  worshippers  may  remain  blind  ;  the  intelli- 
gent and  spiritually  minded  are  repelled  by  what 
appears  to  them  to  be  a  misrepresentation  of  God 
and  a  gross  fraud  on  men  practised  in  the  name 
of  religion. 

Some  of  the  sacred  writings  which  are  revered 
by  peoples  in  India  and  elsewhere  are  like  this 
figure  in  the  convent  by  Oberammergau.  They 
arc  declared  by  the  priests  to  be  sacrosanct.  The 
very  language  in  which  they  are  written  is  unin- 
telligible to  their  worshippers.  Their  contents  are 
known,  so  far  as  they  are  known,  only  in  adap- 
tations and  paraphrases,  cast  in  the  language  of 
a  later  period  and  combined  with  the  thoughts 
and  doctrines  of  that  period.     Some  of  the  hymns 


^1^         Early  Hebrew  Story 

of  the  Rig  Veda  sound  to  us  of  today  like  an  in- 
centive to  and  a  glorification  of  lust ;  much  in  this 
Veda  and  in  other  later  Indian  sacred  books  is  worse 
than  foolish.  But  this  no  one  sees.  The  crude, 
gross  image  is  declared  to  be  divine,  and  the  faith- 
ful worship,  unseeing,  unwitting  what  they  worship. 
Generally  such  sacred  books  are  in  part  fine,  but 
the  fine  metal  of  which  they  are  composed  is 
sadly  mixed  at  places  with  baser  material.  If  their 
bodies  are  of  brass  their  feet  are  of  clay  ;  but  this 
the  worshippers  are  not  allowed  to  perceive,  be- 
cause they  are  covered  with  a  veil  of  authority  or 
interpretation. 

In  general  the  older  such  books  are,  and  the 
more  ignorant  of  their  actual  contents  the  worship- 
pers, the  more  sacred  they  are  declared  to  be, 
figures  let  down  from  heaven  So  the  Indian,  igno- 
rant of  the  very  ancient  language  in  which  his  Veda 
is  written,  with  no  knowledge  of  its  contents, 
declares  that  it  is  not  only  divine,  but  self  creative. 
The  Moslem  forbids  him  who  is  not  a  believer  to 
so  much  as  touch  his  holy  book,  the  Koran.  Writ- 
ten  in  Arabic  unintelligible  to  the  Arab  of  today, 
so  that  even  he  cannot  understand  its  meaning, 
much  less  the  Turks  and  the  millions  of  Persian, 
Indian,  Malayan  and  other  Moslems  of  a  race  alien 
to  that  of  the  founder  of   Islam,  the  Koran  may 


Moral  Willie  -7'  ^ 

not  be  translated  even  for  the  faithful,  and  the 
unlearned  believer  can  know  it  only  througii  its 
interpretation.  All  that  most  know  is  the  sound 
of  unintelligible  words,  which  they  recite  by  rote, 
worshipping  the  letter  and  the  sound  as  a  sort  of 
fetish. 

There  have  been  times  when  Jews  and  Christians 
did  much  the  same  thing  with  the  Bible;  and  there 
are  countless  Jews  and  Christians  today  to  whom 
the  Bible  is  known  not  for  itself  and  by  itself,  but 
through  the  garb  of   the   doctrine  in  which  it  has 
been  dressed,  the  Talmud,  or  the  Fathers.     To  one    ^ 
who,  like  myself,   believes  profoundly  in  the  value  ^ 
of  tradition  in  a  Church  of  tradition  and  authority,     \ 
this  garb  of  doctrine  is  interesting  and  has  its  value,      \ 
but  precisely  in  so  far  as  it  is  used  to  hide  the  book 
itself  or  prevent  the  study  of  that  book  as  other 
books  are  studied,  with  an  appeal  to  the  reason  and        , 
intelligence  of  the  individual  and  the  age,  I  protest 
against  that  tradition  and  that  authority.  V- 

To    him     who    honestly    believes    in    the    divine 
inspiration  of  the   Bible  the  only  method  of  treat-      i 
nient  logically  possible  is  that  pursued  by  the  vast      / 
body  of  Protestants  in  their  missionary  propaganda,      ' 
where  they  take  the  Bible  simply  as  it  stands,  trans- 
lated  freely  and   frankly  into  the  languages  of  the 
nations  to  whom  they  go,  and  bid  them  read  that 


2/2  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Bible  without  any  interpretation  whatsoever.  That 
course  is  the  true  course  to  pursue  with  regard  to  a 
book  which  we  claim  to  be  sacred.  Its  sanctity 
must  shine  forth  from  itself.  It  must  prove  itself 
to  each  succeeding  generation,  with  its  increased 
knowledge  and  its  different  ideas,  to  each  nation, 
with  its  different  language  and  its  different  cus- 
toms, as  something  through  which  God  speaks  to 
man.  We  count  it  different  from  any  other  book, 
and  therefore  we  dare  to  lay  it  down  thus,  open 
before  the  world,  and  challenge  men  to  study  it  for 
itself  ;  and  we  who  do  this  must  study  it  and  handle 
it  with  the  same  frankness. 

The  interpretation  based  upon  the  scientific 
knowledge  and  methods  of  one  age  will  nG^  be  the 
interpretation  which  is  sufficient  for  another  age ; 
but  if  the  Bible  is  what  we  believe  it  to  be,  we 
need  have  no  fear  of  applying  to  it  the  test  of  the 
scientific  examination  and  criticism  of  any  age 
whatsoever.  Our  faith  in  the  truth  which  we  pro- 
fess to  believe  is  at  stake  in  this  question  of  our 
dealing  with  the  Bible.  If  we  fear  to  submit  it  to 
these  tests,  we  fear  to  do  so  because  we  fear  that  it 
is  not  what  we  claim  that  it  is.  The  profoundest 
faith  in  Christ  and  the  Christian  religion  is  that 
which  challenges  the  criticism  and  examination  of 
the  age,  which  believes  that   every  scientific  test 


Moral  Xaliic  -71 

will  but  brine:  out  more  fully  the  fact  that  God 
has  rcvcalctl  himself  to  mankind,  especially  in  and 
through  that  nation  from  which  the  Lord  was  born, 
whose  history  was  one  long  preparing,  one  preg- 
nancy for  that  birth. 

And  one  thing  more :  If  wc  believe  that  Jesus, 
the  true  and  full  revelation  of  God  to  man,  was 
both  human  and  divine,  then  it  must  be  clear,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  such  was  the  nature  of  any  lower 
revelation  made  by  God  to  man,  as  through  the 
men  who  prepared  the  way  for  His  coming,  or  the 
men  that  wrote  the  story  of  His  life.  Wc  must 
believe  that  the  human  and  divine  were  combined 
in  the  revelation  made  through  them,  and  it  is  no 
more  profane  to  speak  o-f  Jesus  as  having  human 
tlesh,  as  having  hands  and  feet  and  nose  and  eyes 
and  ears,  as  we  men  havifvas  having  grown  from 
childhood  to  youth  as  wc-^grow,  as  having  been  in 
all  respects  what  men  about  Him  are,  save  in  the 
completeness  of  His  victory  over  sin  and  the  full- 
ness of  His  one-ness  with  God,  than  it  is  profane  to 
speak  of  the  Book  which  we  count,  above  all  books, 
as  the  inspired  book,  as  having  human  characteris- 
tics ;  or  to  speak  of  that  nation  whose  story,  whose 
growth  and  whose  highest  thought  are  revealed  to 
us  in  that  book,  as  having  the  experiences  and  char- 
acteristics which  we  know  in  other  nations.     If  wc 


274         Early  Hebrew  Story 

would  know  really  what  is  spiritual  and  what  is 
inspired  in  the  thought  and  life  of  Israel,  we  must 
learn  to  know  also  what  is  human  and  what  is 
natural.  There  is  no  profanation,  then,  in  finding 
in  the  early  story  of  the  Hebrews,  as  in  the  early 
story  of  any  people,  myths  and  legends,  fables  and 
traditions.  There  is  nothing  profane  in  observing 
the  growth  of  Israel  out  of  the  simple,  sweet  yet 
foolish  thoughts  of  childhood  into  the  fuller 
growth  of  the  man. 

,  And  now  to  sum  up  conclusions.  What  I  have 
/  treated  in  these  lectures  is  but  part  of  a  whole. 
My  object  has  not  been  to  take  up  each  individual 
tradition  or  legend  and  explain  it  fully.  I  have 
,,/^rather  sought  to  suggest  methods  of  treatment,  giv- 
ing examples  of  the  way  in  which  here,  as  in  any 
primitive  history,  we  mi  ,t  search  for  the  historical 
truth  that  lies  behind ''^he  early  story.  I  have 
warned  you  that  all  stories  are  not  the  same  stories  ; 
that  in  folklore,  such  as  we  have  in  the  earlier  books 
of  the  Bible,  we  cannot  always  trace  the  origin  of 
details,  and  yet  that  often  some  little  detail  contains 
a  most  valuable  historical  suggestion.  I  have  dealt 
only  with  the  earlier  stories  and  legends,  before  the 
documentary  period. 

We  may  divide  the  early  story,  as  we  find  it  in 
the   Bible,  into,  fir§t,  t,hat    portion    ending   in  the 


Moral  Value  275 

eleventh  chapter  of  Genesis,  which  deals  with  the 
creation  of  the  world,  the  origin  of  man,  the  origin 
of  civilization,  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  language 
and  those  things  which  are  back  of  any  race  or 
national  tradition. 

I  have  tried  to  show  you  that  this  material,  as 
we  have  it  in  the  Bible,  has  its  closest  connection 
with  B^Jjylottian  sources.  The  cosmogonies  and 
the  genealogies  of  those  earlier  chapters  find  not 
alone  their  parallels  but  also  their  origins  in  Baby- 
Ionia;  not,  as  I  have  stated  more  than  once,  that 
they  were  directly  borrowed  from  Babylonia,  but 
that  Babylon'^  is  the  source  from  which  indirectly 
and  at  a  very  early  period  they  came  to  Israel. 

The  remainder  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  deals  with 
the  story  of  Israel's  forefathers  before  Israel  became 
a  nation,  and  is  in  its  main  features  Canaanite,  pre- 
cisely as  the  first  part  is  Babylonian,  It  is  the 
Canaanite  holy  places,  the  Canaanite  traditions  and 
legends  which  were  taken  over  and  made  a  part  of 
Israel's  history. 

It  is  with  Moses  first,  with  his  creation  of  a  nation 
and  a  religion,  that  a  new  form  of  tradition  begins, 
which  we  may  call  more  distinctively  Israclitic,  the 
basis  of  which  is  not  that  which  was  taken  from 
others  and  woven  into  Hebrew  thought  and  life, 
but  that  which  was  itself  Israclitic. 


\1 


276  Early  Hebrew  Story 

This  is  only  a  rough,  general  grouping.  I  have 
pointed  out  that  in  the  earliest  stories  we  have 
Canaanitic  elements ;  and  that  these  stories  them- 
selves have  been  so  worked  over  in  an  Israelitic 
sense  and  so  permeated  by  Israelitic  thought  that 
they  are  now  more  different  from  than  like  their 
early  Babylonian  originals.  So,  in  the  material  of 
the  second  stratum,  the  Canaanite  stratum,  if  I 
may  so  designate  it,  I  have  shown  that  there  are 
not  a  few  Babylonian  elements  ;  and,  further,  that 
this  whole  material  has  been  woven  into  the  web  of 
the  Israelitic  racial  traditions  and  been  made  part 
of  the  Israelitic  national  self-consciousness,  so  that, 
in  the  form  in  which  it  comes  down  to  us,  it  is  in 
very  truth  a  history  of  the  forefathers  and  the  race 
of  Israel.  And  in  the  third,  the  highest  stratum,  I 
have  tried  to  show  you  that  there  are  also  incor- 
porated more  primitive  elements,  Babylonian  and 
Canaanite  material.  I  might  add  that  even  after 
documentary  history  begins  we  still  have  in  Israel, 
just  as  in  Rome  in  the  story  of  Livy,  an  abundance 
of  folklore,  primitive  speculations,  curious  religious 
legends,  which  are  not  history  in  our  modern  sense 
of  the  term  history,  and  which,  if  we  wish  to  reduce 
them  to  what  we  call  historical  form,  must  first  be 
sifted  and  recomposed. 

Folklore  remained  a  living  force  in  Israel  to  the 


Moral  Willie  277 

last,  and  the  out-pourings  of  folklore  characterize 
some  of  the  most  interesting  periods  of  Israelitic 
histor)',  an  evidence  that  Israel  was  still  keenly 
alive  in  all  its  members.  What  part  of  the  book  of 
Kings  is  more  interesting  to  the  general  and  more 
profitable  to  the  religious  reader  than  precisely  that 
part  which  is  drawn  from  the  folklore  that  gathered 
around  the  early  prophets — those  "Tales  of  the 
I'rophets,"  nhich  have  given  us  the  gigantic  figure 
of  niijah,  and  the  tamer  and  more  human,  but  at 
the  same  time  more  magical  and  less  ethical,  pic- 
ture of  Elisha?  What  more  full  of  the  teaching 
of  the  meaning  and  action  of  a  perverted  con- 
science than  the  story  of  Balaam,  in  which,  in 
primitive  fashion,  the  ass  speaks,  as  is  so  often  the 
case  with  beasts  in  folk  story,  and  proves  to  be  able 
to  see  the  divine  and  spiritual  powers  invisible  to 
man  ?  Again,  in  that  great  revival  of  national  life 
which  was  connected  with  the  revolt  under  the 
Maccabees  against  Antiochian  oppression  and  per- 
secution, we  have  another  out-pouring  of  popular 
thought  and  folklore,  from  which  have  come  the 
fascinating  tales  of  our  Book  of  Daniel.  Here,  at 
this  late  period  in  Israel's  history,  and  still  later  in 
the  Book  of  Esther,  and  in  some  of  the  apocryphal 
books,  like  Tobit,  we  have  material  drawn  from 
heathen     sources,    heathen     myths    and    heathen 


27^  Early  Hebrew  Story 

religious  practices,  remade  into  Israel's  life  and 
Israel's  religious  and  historic  consciousness. 

What  we  have  in  our  Bible  is  only  a  fragment  of 
a  greater  whole.  The  Old  Testament  is  a  survival 
of  the  literature  of  Israel.  The  stories  which  have 
been  woven  together  in  legend  cycles,  in  genealo- 
gies, and,  finally,  in  histories,  in  the  books  which 
have  come  down  to  us,  are  the  survivals  of  a  greater 
mass  of  stories  told  in  the  early  days  of  Israel,  first 
by  raconteurs  as  individual  tales,  then  built  into 
cycles,  and  finally  written  down  in  the  literary 
period  of  Israel,  many  of  them  to  be  ultimately 
lost ;  some  leaving  a  trace  here  and  there  in  the 
literature  which  has  come  down  to  us,  others 
doubtless  perishing  altogether.  The  references  of 
prophets  and  psalmists  to  the  traditions  and  leg- 
ends of  Israel  show  us  the  existence  of  such  material 
which  we  have  lost,  and  little  snatches  of  poems 
here  and  there,  whose  references  are  now  blind, 
or  allusions  contained  in  our  present  story,  which 
are  dark  to  us  but  were  evidently  familiar  to  those 
who  first  read  them,  are  all  the  evidence  that  we 
now  possess  of  the  existence  of  this  further  mass 
of  material  ;  but  they  are  enough  to  prove  its 
existence. 

Hosea  knew  a  legend  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah 
of  which  we  know  nothing.      Isaiah  and   Ezekiel 


Moral  Value  -79 

knew  a  story  of  Eden  of  whicli  we  have  no  other 
trace.  The  psalmists  and  Job  knew  myths  of  cre- 
ation and  of  the  contest  between  God  and  the  mon- 
ster of  the  deep  which  are  not  contained  in  the 
present  books  of  the  Bible.  This,  by  the  way, 
should  be  borne  in  mind  when  we  study  the  pro- 
phetic or  poetic  literature  of  Israel  and  ask  what 
was  the  relation  in  thous^ht  and  date  between  our 
written  prophets,  and  our  psalmists,  and  tlie  so- 
called  historical  literature  of  Israel  represented  in 
our  Bible  from  Genesis  on  through  Kings.  There 
has  been  too  much  of  an  inclination,  in  modern  criti- 
cal writings,  to  argue  that  because  a  prophet  does 
not  refer  to  or  quote  from  the  stories  which  we  now 
find,  or  because  he  quotes  from  or  refers  to  stories 
which  are  clearly  other  than  those  which  we  now 
possess,  therefore  our  stories  were  not  known  to, 
or  are  later  than  the  writings  of,  that  prophet. 
The  point  of  view  of  these  critics  has  been  too 
narrow  ;  they  have  failed  to  realize  the  existence 
and  the  bearing  of  that  greater  mass  of  literature 
out  of  which  our  present  Bible  has  been  sifted. 

And  now,  to  consider  more  definitely  the  histor- 
ical value  of  these  early  Hebrew  stories.  There 
was  a  time,  within  my  own  recollection,  when  at 
least  the  conservatives  treated  the  history  of  Livy 
and  the  son^s  of   Homer  as  historical  material,  and 


-So  Early  Hebrew  Story 

there  was  again  a  period,  also  within  my  recollec- 
tion, for  the  development  in  historical  and  literary 
criticism  has  been  a  very  rapid  one  in  the  last  half 
century,  when  critics  regarded  these  things  as 
worthless,  and,  casting  them  away  entirely,  under- 
took to  begin  the  writing  of  history  only  at  a  later 
period,  in  Greece  with  the  Persian  War,  in  Rome 
not  until  long  after  the  beginning  of  the  Republic, 
We  of  today  venture  to  write  the  history  of 
Greece  not  only  up  to  but  before  the  time  of 
I  Homer.  We  find  in  the  Homeric  poems  mate- 
/    rial  for  the  writing  of  that  history  ;   and  yet  not  at 

I    all  the  same  material  which  those  earlier  scholars 

I 

/     found,  who   counted    the   epic    of   the  expedition 

against  Troy  as  literal  fact.  We  write  the  story 
of  Rome  today,  not  only  from  the  time  of  Romu- 
lus and  Remus,  but  from  a  period  still  earlier,  and 
yet  Romulus  and  Remus  are  no  longer  the  histor- 
ical figures  they  seemed  to  the  earlier  generation 
which  accepted  Livy  as  a  text-book  of  history. 
Similarly  we  of  today  believe  that  we  find  history 
in  the  early  Hebrew  story,  unlike  those  men  of  a 
few  years  since,  who  spoke  of  everything  before 
'^  the  time  of  David  and  Solomon  as  a  period  of 
which  we  knew  nothing  whatever,  but  only  idle 
tales,  and  who  made  the  history  of  Israel  commence 
with  the   kingdom  of  David.     But,  on    the    other 


Moral  Value  -^^ 

hand,  wc  do  not  use  this  material  as  those  earlier 
theolofrians  and  earlier  historians  of  Israel  did,  who 
treated,  for  instance,  the  story  of  the  garden  of 
Eden  or  the  legends  of  Abraham  as  prose  history, 
such  as  you  might  expect  from  the  pen  of  a 
Macaulay  or  a  Fiske. 

First  of  all,  these  old  stories,  treated  in  the  way 
which  I  have  endeavored  to  suggest  to  you,  carry 
us  back  into  a  great  antiquity.  We  see  that  the 
material  is  very  ancient,  and  even  the  form  of  that 
material  in  the  latest  of  the  Hebrew  narratives, 
that  of  the  Priest  Code,  is  itself  of  no  small  an- 
tiquity. That  point  of  view  which  regards  the 
writers  of  the  Priest  Code  as  manufacturing  these 
stories  in  the  Babylonian  captivity  has  been  shown 
to  be  radically  false,  and  by  implication  it  would 
seem  that  the  similar  conception  of  the  manufac- 
ture of  laws  in  Babylonia  must  be  treated  in  the 
same  way.  What  has  been  done  to  far  too  great 
an  extent  by  a  certain  school  of  critics  is  to  deter- 
mine the  date  of  a  writing  by  the  last  hand  that 
worked  over  the  material,  the  last  idea  which  was 
woven  in.  It  is  as  tliough  a  man  were  to  restore 
today  an  old  cathedral  which  had  fallen  into  ruins. 
He  scrapes  ofT  here  the  plaster  that  had  been 
smeared  over  an  ancient  painting.  There,  where  a 
fragment   of  carving  has  fallen   out,  he  puts  in  a 


282  Early  Hebrew  Story 

new  piece,  according  to  his  best  judgment  as  near 
as  may  be  a  replica  of  that  which  had  been  there 
before.  Some  distinctly  modern  things  he  intro- 
duces, the  use  of  iron  supports  and  the  like,  which 
were  unknown  in  the  older  time.  And  when  he 
has  restored  this  cathedral,  the  body  of  which  and 
the  design  of  which  is  truly  ancient,  albeit  built 
upon  by  many  hands,  until  it  has  been  at  last 
repaired  by  this  modern  architect,  some  critics  say  : 
"See,  there  is  iron  here;  that  was  not  known  in 
the  old  times  ;  and  here  is  a  stone  which  evidently 
came  from  this  recent  quarry  which  has  but  now 
been  opened,  and  it  bears  the  tool  marks  of  our 
age.  This  cathedral  is  a  modern  cathedral." 
They  have  overlooked  the  great  essential  features 
and  dwelt  only  upon  the  minor  matters  of  the 
latest  reconstruction.  Fundamentally  these  sto- 
ries in  the  early  books  of  Genesis  are  of  great 
antiquity.  Their  final  handling  is  late.  ^  But  that 
which  is  essential,  the  core  of  this  material,  the 
conception  and  the  design,  belongs  to  a  remote 
antiquity. 

The  archaeological  and  other  discoveries  which 
have  been  made  in  Palestine  itself,  in  Syria,  in 
Egypt,  and,  above  all,  in  Assyria  and  Babylonia, 
have  been  in  their  way  a  corrective  to  modern 
critical  tendencies.     They  have  shown   us  that  we 


Moral  Value  ^s 


J 


arc  in  these  stories  in  touch  with  a  remote  an- 
tiquity, and  that  even  the  authors  of  tlie  Priest 
Code  had  their  material  largely  cut  out  and  pre- 
l)ared  by  a  tradition,  the  roots  of  which  go  down 
three  thousand  years  before  the  time  of  Christ. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  that  these  stories 
are  valuable  historically  in  the  revelation  of  early 
racial  connections ;  that  they  contain  true  tradi- 
tions of  the  origin  and  formation  and  kinship  of 
the  Hebrew  people  and  some  of  their  neighbors,  / 
of  the  conquest  of  Canaan  and  the  relation  of  the 
Hebrews  to  the  Canaanites,  of  tribal  origins  and 
developments  in  Israel  itself.  Now  and  then  there 
is  an  account  of  some  great  historical  event,  show- 
ing, for  example,  the  political  relations  of  Canaan 
lo  Babylonia,  like  that  of  which  we  get  a  glimpse 
in  the  story  of  Abraham's  victory  over  Chedorla- 
omer.  But,  above  all,  we  have  in  these  legends,  as 
they  have  come  down  to  us,  the  strongest  confirma- 
tion of  the  truth  of  the  story  of  the  deliverance 
from  Egypt,  of  which  so  much  is  made  in  later 
Hebrew  history.  Indelibly  it  fixed  its  imprint 
upon  these  early  legends,  woven  into  each  because 
it  was  an  event  which  impressed  itself  upon  the  life 
of  all  Israel. 

Historically  these  early  stories  are  valuable  also    i 
in  that  unconscious  picture  which  they  give  us  of    I 


2^4  Early  Hebrew  Story 

the  life  and  thought  of  the  people.  Folklore  is 
more  illuminating  in  its  pictures  of  social  and  in- 
dustrial conditions,  of  domestic  life,  of  the  ideas, 
customs  and  habits  of  a  people  than  formal  his- 
tory ;  and  he  who  wants  to  know  how  the  Israelites 
of  early  times  lived  must  turn  not  to  the  formal 
history  of  the  Book  of  Kings,  but  to  Genesis  and 
Judges.  But  here  we  must  remember  that  folklore, 
passed  down  from  mouth  to  mouth,  changes  in  its 
description  of  environment,  not  quite,  but  almost 
pari  passu  with  the  change  of  that  environment 
itself,  so  that  the  pictures  of  life  which  we  obtain 
in  the  stories  of  Genesis,  Exodus  and  Judges,  are 
not  pictures  of  the  life  2000  or  1500  years  B.  C, 
but  more  nearly  1000  years  B.  C,  at  a  period  just 
before  they  were  reduced  to  written  form. 

Above  all,  early  Hebrew  story  is  valuable  as  a 
history  of  the  development  of  civilization,  moral- 
ity and  religion  among  the  Hebrews,  and  in  this 
lies  part  also  of  the  moral  value  to  us  of  today  of 
these  early  stories. 

I  have  tried  to  show  you  the  likeness  between 
Babylonian  cosmogonies,  legends,  mythology  and 
magic  and  those  of  the  Hebrews,  the  identity  of 
Israelitic  with  Canaanitic  practices,  ritual,  ceremo- 
nial and  sacred  places,  the  intimate  relation  be- 
tween  the    popular   religion    of  Israel  and  that  of 


Moral  Value  ^'^5 

Babylonia  and  Canaan,  and  1  liave  done  so  because 
my  object  was  to  prove  to  you  the  connection  with 
and  de[iendence  on  Babylonia  and  Canaan  of  the 
Hebrews  in   i)iiniili\c  times.  -y^// 

More  cliaracteristic  than  these  h'kcnesses,  how- 
ever, are  the  diver^^encies  whicli  exist.  Take  the 
l^abylonian  myth  of  creation.  Read  of  the  strange 
figures  of  monsters  and  gods  who  succeeded  one 
another  in  a.'on  after  .eon  ;  of  tiic  struggle  of  god 
with  god,  of  the  weakness  and  the  immoralities  of 
those  gods.  Read  of  the  caprices  of  the  gods 
which  bring  about  the  Flood,  liehold  the  picture 
of  the  gods  huddled  together,  shuddering  in  terror 
because  of  the  destruction  which  is  wrought.  Sec 
the  powcrlcssncss  of  the  gods  in  the  presence  of 
nature  and  of  fate.  Hear  how  the  gods  sensuously 
and  greedily  clustered  around  the  sacrifice  like  flies 
about  sweetmeats.  Then  read  the  Hebrew  story, 
even  in  the  anthropomorphic  representation  of  the 
earliest  Hebrew  narrative,  where  Yahaweh  walks 
among  men  and  counsels  with  them  as  a  man.  He 
and  He  only  is  the  author  of  all  things.  His  judg- 
ments are  not  the  judgments  of  caprice,  but  moral 
judgments  based  on  a  conception  of  justice  aiul 
right.  Man's  relations  with  Him  are  not  merely 
those  relations  of  terror  which  man  must  have  with 
any  being  whose  nature  and  character  is  alien   to 


286  Early  Hebrew  Story 

him  and  unfathomable  by  him.  God  made  man  in 
His  image.  Man  can  understand,  man  can  come  to 
God  ;  and  God's  dealings  with  man  are  reasonable 
and  intelligible  to  man. 

Go  on  upward  from  this  into  the  higher  and 
more  spiritual,  if  less  poetic  and  picturesque  cos- 
mogony of  the  Priest  Code,  with  its  picture  of  the 
all-power  of  God  alone,  who  need  not  put  forth  His 
hand,  whose  breath,  whose  word  create,  from  whom 
alone  are  all  things.  He  transcends  the  universe, 
and  transcends  so  far  the  thought  of  man  himself 
that  he  can  form  no  picture  of  His  likeness. 

Or  take  the  Hebrew  story  of  the  Flood,  whose 
cause  is  the  wickedness  of  man,  which  God  would 
punish,  with  its  moral  lesson  of  the  relation  of  God 
to  man  and  man  to  God,  and  that  for  all  sin  and 
evil  that  is  wrought  God  will  bring  calamity  and 
destruction,  who  is  yet  not  unwilling  to  remem- 
ber the  good  that  is  done,  if  it  be  but  by  one  indi- 
vidual, whom  He  will  surely  recompense  for  his 
righteousness. 

I  have  called  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  remi- 
niscences of  Canaanite  polytheism,  of  Canaanite 
child-worship,  of  the  immoral  Canaanitic  sex  wor- 
ship, shine  through  the  later  stories  here  and  there, 
but  the  fact  that  we  get  such  glimpses,  confirming 
the   continual    references   of   the    Prophets  to   the 


Moral  Value  287 

abominations  of  the  land,  does  but  bring  out  in 
clearer  relief  the  wonderful  exaltation  and  purity  of 
the  Hebrew  narrative  and  carry  conviction  of  the 
inspiration  of  the  men  and  the  people  through 
whom  these  talcs  have  come  down  to  us.  That 
they,  seeing  the  spiritual  reality  behind  and  beneath 
the  gross  and  crude  expression,  did  out  of  such 
material  build  a  story  so  sweet  and  beautiful  and 
uplifting,  is  an  evidence  of  the  inspiring  Spirit 
which  dwelt  in  Israel,  of  God  working  in  this  peo- 
ple to  lift  it  out^of  polytheism  into  monotheism. 
That  out  of  what  seems  to  us  a  foul  nature  wor- 
ship they  should  gain  that  inward,  underlying 
thought  which  was  worth  having  of  the  worship  of 
a  life-giving  God,  and  incorporate  it  in  their  relig- 
ious life  ;  that  out  of  the  abhorrent  child-sacrifice  f 
they  should  take  that  exalted  spiritual  thought  ot 
the  true  human  sacrifice,  the  offering  of  one's  self, 
one's  thoughts,  one's  deeds,  one's  possessions,  a 
living  sacrifice  unto  God  ; —  that  is  their  glory,  and 
the  evidence  of  their  peculiar  relation  to  God, 
which  we  call  inspiration. 

The  difference  between  the  Hebrew  stories  con- 
tained in  Genesis  and  their  Babylonian  and  Canaan- 
ite  prototypes  is  striking  evidence  of  the  his^rical 
fact  of  the  mission  of  Moses.  Precisely  as  Chris- 
tianity  took  over    and    reformed    the    myths   and 


288  Early  Hebrew  Story 

legends  of  the  countries  which  it  conquered  or 
occupied,  so  the  religion  of  Moses  took  over  and 
reformed  the  myths  and  legends  which  it  found  in 
Canaan.  The  legend  of  Perceval  or  Parsifal  may 
serve  as  an  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  Chris- 
tianity dealt  with  the  early  heathen  myths  which  it 
absorbed.  Parsifal  was  a  heathen  hero  ;  the  origi- 
nal story  of  Parsifal,  a  heathen  myth.  In  Christian 
legend  he  becomes  a  man.  The  gods  and  demi- 
gods of  the  heathen  legend  vanish  ;  but  the  divine 
element  remains  transformed  into  another  shape. 
The  legend  is  brought  into  connection  with  Jesus 
through  the  ritual  of  the  Christian  Church,  and 
there  is  a  sort  of  mystic  combination  of  Parsifal 
with  Jesus  through  the  Holy  Grail.  In  such  ways 
a  heathen  myth  and  heathen  demigods  or  heroes 
became  the  most  effective  means  of  conveying 
Christianity  and  Christian  truth.  The  same  thing 
precisely  occurred  in  the  transformation  of  the 
old  mythic  material  by  the  Hebrew  forefathers. 
The  monotheistic  and  moral  elements  which  were 
introduced  into  those  stories,  and  which  are  per- 
sonified in  the  heroes  of  those  stories,  are  due  to 
Moses,  in  the  same  sense  that  the  transformation 
of  the  Parsifal  and  similar  legends  are  attributable 
to  Jesus  Christ. 

That  the  heathen  polytheistic  myths  and  sensual 


Moral   \aliic  289 

and  cruel  rites  which  the  Hebrews  took  over  from 
Canaanites  and  Babylonians  have  been  transformed 
into  the  sweet,  sane  and  charming  stories  of  Gene- 
sis, that  Hebrew  monotheism  and  Hebrew  morality 
liavc  been  breathed  into  them,  so  that  they  have 
become  instinct  with  the  life  of  Israel,  an  expres- 
sion of  its  better  spiritual  being,  is  due  to  Moses, 
and  is  itself  a  proof  of  the  nature  and  reality  of 
his  mission.  Why  did  these  tales  become,  in  the 
mouths  of  the  men  of  Israel,  so  pure  and  exalted 
at  a  period  long  antecedent  to  the  time  of  the  first 
writing  prophets,  Amos  and  Hosca?  It  was  not 
Amos  and  Hosca  who  inspired  them  with  their 
stern  morality,  their  lofty  monotheism,  their  charm- 
ing idealism.  It  was  they  who  prepared  the  way 
for  the  teaching  of  those  prophets.  The  advance 
made  upon  their  teaching  by  the  more  formal 
pronouncements  of  those  great  teachers  of  right- 
eousness is  relatively  small.  The  great  work  of 
creation  and  inspiration  had  been  achieved  lonr^ 
before  their  day.  Who  or  what  was  it  then  that 
gave  inspiration  to  the  men  who  at  such  an  early 
date  transmuted  the  dross  of  heathen  myths  and ' 
legends  into  this  pure  gold  of  ethical  story  ?  The 
selfsame  myths  and  legends  remained  gross,  sensual 
and  polytheistic  in  the  lore  of  the  more  highly 
civilized  peoples  among  whom  the  Israelites  lived 


290  Early  Hebrew  Story 

and  with  whom  they  were  in  constant  intercourse, 
as  we  see  by  a  comparison  with  the  myths  and 
legends  —  and  their  would-be  scientific  expansions 
and  explanations  —  of  the  Phoenicians.  The  phe- 
nomenon of  this  extraordinary  transformation  of 
gross  and  sensual  heathen  legends  into  the  sweet, 
pure  stories  of  Israel's  heroes  is  convincing  evi- 
dence of  some  profound  and  inspired  influence 
which  at  the  outset  differentiated  Israel  from  the 
peoples  among  whom  it  dwelt.  It  is,  in  other 
words,  a  proof  of  the  substantial  truth  of  Israel's 
claim  of  a  revelation  of  God  through  Moses. 

More  in  detail  I  might  endeavor  to  point  out  to 
you  the  historical  value  of  early  Hebrew  story  on 
the  side  of  moral  history.  That  story  is  an  evi- 
dence to  us  of  the  moral  growth,  the  moral  evolu- 
tion of  the  people  of  Israel,  which,  in  a  sense,  is 
parallel  with  the  moral  growth  and  the  moral  evo- 
lution of  the  individual  from  childhood  up  ;  that 
growth  and  evolution  which  ultimately  made  the 
religion  of  Israel  ripen  into  the  religion  of  Christ 
Jesus.  But  this  early  Hebrew  story  has  a  moral 
value  not  merely  as  the  study  of  the  development 
of  a  people.  If  this  were  all,  then  Genesis  and 
Exodus,  Leviticus  and  Numbers,  Deuteronomy, 
Joshua  and  Judges,  would  be  valuable  chiefly  to 
the  student  of  religion,  to  the  scholar  who  looks 


Moral  X'alue  291 

back  to  see  out  of  what  a  later  and  truer  religion 
has  grown,  and  smiles  to  himself,  sympathetically, 
it  may  be,  but  still  smiles  as  he  reads  the  crude 
thoughts  of  tlic  childhood  of  that  religion.  This 
early  story  has  a  present-day  moral  value,  a  moral 
value  not  only  for  the  student,  but  also  for  the 
modern  practitioner  of  religion.  It  has  a  right  to 
be  called  inspired,  not  only  by  comparison  with 
other  sacred  literature  of  early  date,  but  also  be- 
cause of  its  actual  value  in  moral  teaching  today. 

Let  us  take  that  book  of  which  we  especially 
think  when  we  speak  of  early  Hebrew  story  —  the 
Book  of  Genesis.  It  is  one  part  of  a  larger  whole. 
Time  will  not  allow  me  to  analyze  the  whole.  Let 
me  analyze  this  part  and  endeavor  to  show  you  in 
it  what  I  mean.  In  the  first  place,  look  at  it  from 
the  point  of  view  of  its  outward  form.  I  sometimes 
think  that  I  should  like  to  publish  the  Book  of 
Genesis  divided  into  its  own  proper  sections  and 
chapters,  the  whole  of  it,  just  as  it  was  meant  to  be 
seen  and  read  by  the  final  artist,  the  last  hand  that 
put  it  into  shape.  We  have  it  today  divided  into 
a  number  of  chapters  —  fifty  of  them  —  according 
to  a  relatively  modern  scheme,  and  each  chapter 
divided  into  a  number  of  verses  for  convenience  of 
reference  ;  and  the  chapters  are  headed  with  state- 
ments as  to  their  contents.     Now  while  the  Book 


292  Early  Hebrew  Story 

of  Genesis  is  a  fragment  of  a  larger  whole,  the 
Pentateuch,  or  the  Hexateuch,  or  the  great  history 
of  Israel,  according  to  the  relation  in  which  you 
consider  it,  there  is  also  a  unity  of  design  in  the 
book  itself,  which  makes  it  a  true  book.  There  are 
two  great  divisions  of  the  Book  —  the  first  deal- 
ing with  the  pre-Hebrew  world,  the  world  before 
.  ibraham  ;  and  the  second  and  much  larger  division 
dealing  with  the  ancestors  of  the  Hebrews  before 
Moses,  from  Abraham  onward. 

In  the  first  main  division  there  are  seven  chap- 
ters, the  mystical  and  complete  number  which  God 
himself  observed  in  the  creation  of  the  world.  In 
the  second  part  there  are  five  chapters,  and  the 
whole  put  together  adds  up  another  mystical  num- 
ber, twelve,  the  number  of  the  tribes  of  Israel.  It 
is  a  quaint  method,  this  division  into  sections, 
according  to  a  mystical  numerical  scheme,  giving 
even  the  outward  form  a  religious  significance ;  but 
it  is  a  method  which  was  familiar  also  to  authors  of 
our  own  race  not  so  many  centuries  ago. 

The  first  chapter  of  each  of  these  two  great  sec- 
tions has  no  heading.  Each  succeeding  chapter  is 
conveniently  indicated  by  a  recurrent  formula. 
You  must  remember  that  such  divisions  for  the 
eye  as  you  and  I  make  today  by  the  separation  of 
words  and  sentences  from  one  another  by  spaces, 


Moral  Value  293 

tlie  headings  of  chapters,  parentheses,  punctuation, 
all  those  devices  for  facilitating  the  reading  and 
understanding  of  the  written  text,  were  unknown 
in  that  early  period,  unknown  even  to  Greek  ant' 
Latin  antiquity.  Where  we  use  chapter  headings, 
the  compiler  of  Genesis  used  these  recurrent 
formul.'U. 

The  first  chapter,  of  course,  needed  no  heading. 
The  second  chapter  is  indicated  by  this  heading 
(Gen.  II,  4):  "These  are  the  generations  of  the 
heavens  and  of  the  earth  when  they  were  created, 
in  the  day  that  the  Lord  God  made  the  earth  and 
the  heavens."  Then  we  read  the  story  of  the  cre- 
ation of  man  upon  the  earth,  of  the  beasts,  of  the 
making  of  woman  as  man's  helpmeet,  of  the  gar- 
den in  which  God  placed  this  man  and  woman,  the 
serpent,  the  temptation,  the  fall  and  the  curse. 
The  second  chapter  is  designated  (V,  i):  "The 
Book  of  the  Generations  of  Man  (Adam)."  It  con- 
tains the  story  of  antediluvian  mankind,  with  his 
genealogies.  The  fourth  chapter,  VI,  9  -  IX,  29, 
is  headed  :  "  The  Generations  of  Noah,"  and  con- 
tains the  story  of  Noah  and  the  Flood.  The  fifth 
chapter,  X,  i  -  XI,  9,  is  called  :  "  The  Generations 
of  the  sons  of  Noah."  It  carries  you  down  to  the 
branching  off  of  that  particular  race  out  of  which 
Israel    was  to  come.     The    sixth    chapter.  Genesis 


294  Early  Hebrew  Story 

XI,  lO-XI,  26,  is  headed:  "The  Generations  of 
Shem,"  and  gives  you,  in  the  form  of  genealogy, 
the  history  of  those  kindred  nations,  known  as 
Semites,  of  relationship  with  whom,  through  a 
common  ancestor,  the  Hebrews  were  conscious  lin- 
guistically and  ethnologically.  The  seventh  chap- 
ter, Genesis  XI,  27-32,  is  headed :  "  The  Gener- 
ations of  Terah."  This  recounts  the  separation 
from  the  eastern  Semites  of  that  west  Semitic  ele- 
ment out  of  which  Israel  was  conscious  of  being 
derived,  and  the  genealogy  of  this  west  Semitic 
stem. 

This  ends  Part  I  of  Book  I  of  Genesis.  As  in 
the  first  part,  so  in  the  second  part,  also,  the  first 
chapter,  which  is  the  story  of  the  great  forefather 
of  the  Hebrews,  Abraham  (Gen.  XII,  i  -  XXV, 
11),  is  without  a  heading.  The  second  chapter  is 
headed :  "  The  Generations  of  Ishmael "  (Gen. 
XXV,  12-18);  the  third  chapter  :"  The  Generations 
of  Isaac"  (XXV,  19 -XXXV,  29);  the  fourth 
chapter;  "The  Generations  of  Esau"  (XXXVI,- 
XXXVII,  I);  the  fifth  chapter:  "The  Gener- 
ations of  Jacob"  (XXXVII,  2  to  the  close  of  the 
book). 

Note  the  way  in  which  the  writer  takes  first  the 
eldest  son  of  Abraham,  Ishmael,  and  follows  his 
history  until  it  ends  in  nothing,  as  much  as  to  say : 


Moral  Value  295 

"  Sec,  God  would  have  chosen  him,  but  it  was  in 
vain.  That  is  the  end.  We  must  go  back  and 
look  for  and  find  another  clue."  In  the  same  way 
he  follows  the  history  of  Esau,  only  to  return  and 
take  up  the  story  of  the  younger  son,  Jacob,  like 
one  who  has  followed  a  wrong  road  and  found  it  a 
cul-de-sac,  and  must  come  back  to  the  last  crossing 
and  start  afresh.     Such  is  the  outward  scheme. 

Now  notice  the  conception  which  the  book  pre- 
sents and  which  I  think  is  grand,  not  only  in  com- 
parison with  any  other  primitive  history  that  was 
ever  written,  but  grand  in  itself  and  full  of  meaning 
to  us  of  today.  According  to  the  conception  of  the 
man  who  cast  the  book  in  this  form,  the  his- 
toiy  of  the  beginnings  of  Israel  must  commence 
with  the  creation  of  the  universe,  because  that  was 
the  beginning  of  God's  plan  about  Israel.  Then 
observe  the  writer's  conception  of  sin  as  the  cause  of 
trouble  in  the  world  and  the  picture  which  he  gives 
you  of  the  misery  that  follows  sin  :  the  sin  of  the 
disobedience  to  God's  law,  arbitrary  though  it  seem, 
the  sin  that  somehow  comes  with  sex,  and  the  misery 
entailed  on  the  human  race  in  the  hard  life  of  toil 
for  the  man  and  child-bearing  for  the  woman,  and 
perpetual  conflict  with  the  serpent. 

The  horrible  results  of  envy,  hatred  and  malice 
arc  vividly  pictured  in  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel. 


296  Early  Hebrew  Story 

Then  follows,  in  a  couple  of  episodes,  the  story  o( 
the  corruption  of  the  earth,  God's  wrath,  and  the 
horrible  punishment  of  the  Flood  by  which  all  the 
families  of  the  earth  were  destroyed,  save  only 
that  of  Noah.  It  is  like  a  picture  of  our  own 
thoughts  and  our  own  ways,  especially  in  the  ^eal 
and  uncharitablcness  of  our  youth.  So  we  would 
root  out  sin  by  a  root  and  branch  destruction  ;  but 
a  root  and  branch  destruction  will  not  destroy  sin. 
A  new  and  different  course  must  be  tried.  Accord- 
ingly a  new  commencement  is  made,  and  you  have 
the  story  of  the  guiding  love  of  God,  which  re- 
sponds to  the  faith  of  man. 

Most  beautifully  this  is  set  forth  in  the  story  of 
Abraham.  Abraham  lets  Lot  choose  the  land  that 
he  will  occupy,  and  Lot  chooses  the  better  land,  to 
which  are  given  the  good  things  of  the  earth.  But 
the  very  luxury  and  wanton  exuberance  of  life 
which  caused  him  to  choose  this  land  are  indirectly 
the  cause  also  of  its  destruction.  To  Abraham 
falls  the  poorer  land,  which  exacts  the  hardy  toil  of 
man  ;  but  the  choice  is  of  God,  and  with  that  land 
goes  God's  blessing.  Because  of  the  complete 
faith  of  Abraham  in  God,  his  ever  readiness  to 
obey,  to  forsake  what  seemed  to  be  the  door  of 
fortune  at  the  behest  of  God,  to  surrender  the 
dearest   that   he   had,    even    his   own    son,  if   God 


Moral  Value  -97 

should  so  command,  God  loved  Abraham  and 
promised  him  a  blessing.  Because  of  the  faith 
wliich  believed  in  the  face  of  disappointment, 
which  believed  in  the  impossible,  even  that  impos- 
sible itself  was  achieved,  and  to  Abraham  and 
Sarah,  aged,  in  the  course  of  nature  barren,  was 
born  Isaac,  and  from  him  Jacob  and  the  twelve 
tribes,  through  whom  the  promised  blessing  was 
fulfilled. 

I  shall  not  ask  you  to  follow  further  with  me  this 
line  of  thought.  The  same  plan,  the  same  thought 
runs  through  the  book.  It  is  a^pictuie  of  a  rela- 
tion of  man  to  God,  whjch  lifts  the  man  out  of  sin 
and  weakness  and  infirmity,  which  out  of  his  faults 
eveir,  through  faith,  brings  him  a  blessing.  I  would 
ask  you,  rather,  to  consider  more  in  detail  two  or 
three  individual  stories  or  episodes  on  their  moral 
side.  I  venture  to  say  that  if  you  will  read  the 
story  of  what  we  commonly  know  as  the  fall  of 
man  in  Eden  intelligently,  comprehending  the 
thought  of  the  writer,  you  will  find  that  the  prob- 
lems which  are  there  presented  and  discussed  in 
this  mystical  story  form  are  the  same  problems 
which  you  and  I  encounter  in  our  daily  life,  and 
that  the  story,  just  as  it  is  there  told,  is  immensely 
profitable  to  you  and  to  me  in  the  moral  consider- 
ation of  those  problems.     We   arc    perfectly   con- 


v/ 


-98  Early  Hebrew  Story 

scious  of  the  truth  which  lies  behind  our  Lord's 
saying,  that  if  we  would  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
God  we  must  be  as  little  children  ;  we  are  perfectly 
conscious  that  in  some  way,  somehow,  every  one  of, 
us,  in  passing  out  of  our  childhood,  has  lost  some- 
thing. The  race  itself,  in  the  development  of 
civilization,  loses  a  similar  something.  And  yet  we 
are  equally  conscious  that  out  of  that  loss  in  some 
way  may  be  achieved  a  greater  gain.  Out  of  the 
toil,  out  of  the  pain,  out  of  the  very  thorns  and 
thistles  and  the  never  ceasing  struggle  with  temp- 
tation comes  a  new  manhood,  a  new  power,  and 
ultimately  a  new  and  wonderful  relation  to  God. 
Who  that  studies  his  own  nature,  who  that  seeks 
to  guide  and  help  those  who  are  struggling  with 
their  consciousness  of  sin  and  fall  and  failure,  but 
finds,  and  has  found  through  all  the  Christian  ages, 
inspiration  and  assistance  in  this  chapter?  Read 
all  the  philosophical  treatises  that  you  will  and 
profit  by  them  ;  I  venture  to  think  that  if  you  will 
read  this  chapter,  simply  and  7iaivcly,  as  it  is 
written,  it  will  after  them  all  still  enlighten  and 
guide  you. 

Is  there  anywhere  in  all  literature  a  more  effect- 
ive setting  forth  of  the  horrible  results  of  envy, 
malice  and  hatred  than  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel  ? 
of  the  abhorrence  which  God  and  man  alike  have 


Moral  Value  299 

for  murder  and  the  murderer,  so  that  the  very 
name  of  Cain  has  become  in  this  connection  a  part 
of  our  own  Hterary  goods,  a  symbol  and  a  by-word 
to  indicate  and  stigmatize  the  malicious  and  envi- 
ous thought  that  leads  to  murder? 

Is  there  any  more  beautiful  picture  which  has 
ever  been  drawn  of  the  man  who  walks  with  God 
than  y\braham,  the  friend  of  God  ?  So  touching  is 
the  tale  that  it  has  sifted  in  strange  forms  through 
all  sorts  of  oriental  traditions.  So  beautiful  and 
so  inspiring  is  the  story  that  all  Islam  today 
admires  and  reveres  that  friend  of  God,  and  where- 
ever  you  go  in  Moslem  lands  you  find  shrines  dedi- 
cated to  Halil,  the  Arab's  name  for  Abraham, 
because  he  was  the  friend  of  God. 

Artistically,  perhaps,  the  most  perfect  specimen 
of  the  raconteur  s  art  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  is  the 
tale  of  the  wooing  of  Rebecca;  and  so  sweet  and 
wholesome  is  the  story  that  the  love  of  Isaac  and 
Rebecca  for  one  another  has  become  a  type  of  true 
marital  affection,  and  to  this  day,  in  the  marriage 
service  of  the  Church  of  England  and  its  sister 
Church  in  America,  prayer  is  offered  that  the 
newly  married  couple  may  "  live  together  as  faith- 
fully as  Isaac  and  Rebecca." 

While  in  many  of  its  features  the  story  of  Jacob 
is   less  exalted  than  that  of  Abraham,  yet  no  one 


300  Early  Hebrew  Story 

can  read  it  without  recognizing  the  beauty  and 
force  of  the  spiritual  touches,  which  are  introduced 
over  and  over  again ;  and  the  very  weaknesses  of 
the  hero,  furnishing  a  point  of  sympathy  and  con- 
tact for  the  average  man,  have  always  made  the 
story  one  of  peculiar  interest  and  value.  The  over- 
shrewdness,  the  touch  of  rascality  in  Jacob's  na- 
ture is  brought  out  with  an  appreciative  sense  of 
humor ;  but  one  feels  also  the  moral  element  in 
the  retribution  that  comes  upon  him,  combined 
with  a  sense  of  the  loving  kindness  of  God,  which 
makes  of  his  very  faults  a  blessing.  But  I  need 
not  attempt  to  describe  in  detail  those  traits  which 
all  recognize. 

Of  a  different  type  from  the  stories  of  Abraham, 
Isaac  and  Jacob,  more  elaborate  in  its  literary 
form,  is  the  story  of  Joseph,  which,  likewise,  is 
narrated  with  great  power,  and  is  a  beautiful  piece 
of  work  from  the  artistic  standpoint. 

The  stories  of  Genesis  are  stories  of  humanity. 
They  appeal  to  men.  They  are  and  will  be  worth 
/  reading  forever.  These  heroes  of  Genesis  are  eter- 
nal. Men,  from  a  generation  brought  up  with  the 
old,  literal  ideas,  may  for  a  time  be  shocked,  as  it 
were,  out  of  the  use  of  the  book  by  this  newer  way 
of  looking  at  it.  Unable  to  hold  the  old  view  any 
longer,  they  yet    cannot   at    first    reconcile   them- 


Moral  Value  3oi 

selves  to  this  new  point  of  view.  They  see  that 
these  stories  are  not  literal  history,  as  they  once 
thought ;  that  God  did  not  walk  back  and  fortli 
upon  the  earth  or  talk  with  men  in  the  literal  way 
there  narrated.  They  had  felt  that  the  essential 
value  of  the  book  lay  in  the  literal  truthfulness  of 
these  things.  They  had  looked  at  it  only  from 
a  peculiar  religious  and  theological  standpoint. 
S  They  arc  unable  longer  to  regard  it  in  this  light 
and  have  no  further  use  for  the  book.  There  will 
always  be  persons,  also,  of  that  prosaic  type  of 
mind  which  cannot  understand  the  mystical,  the 
poetical,  the  story-telling  way  of  conveying  truth. 
To  these  people  I  presume  that  Genesis  will  never 
be  a  source  of  mental  enjoyment  and  spiritual 
uplift.  But  however  much,  for  a  time,  the  ordinary 
serious-minded  man,  or  generation  of  religious 
men,  may  turn  away  from  the  use  of  this  book,  on 
account  of  the  overturning  of  his  previous  theo- 
logical misunderstanding  of  the  nature  of  its  con- 
tents, he  must  ultimately  return  to  it,  I  believe, 
with  renewed  enjoyment  and  profit  ;  and  young 
and  old,  scholars  and  simple  folk  alike  will  con- 
tinue to  read  and  study  it  forever. 

To  the  child  Genesis  is  the  most  charming  book 
in  the  Bible,  and  it  is  a  misfortune  when  the  man 
has  lost  so  much  of  the  child  that  should  be  in  him 


302  Early  Hebrew  Story 

that  he  can  no  longer  appreciate  that  charm.  To 
the  child,  also,  Genesis  is  full  of  spiritual  instruc- 
tion. You  do  not  need  to  take  these  stories  and 
attach  a  theological  interpretation  to  them  for  his 
benefit.  Give  them  to  the  child  in  their  simple 
form,  or  better  still  translate  them  still  more  fully, 
present  them  more  clearly  as  stories,  rid  them  of 
those  curious  Hebrew  words  which  sometimes  puz- 
zle and  bother  the  child  and  give  him  false  impres- 
sions, translating  them  precisely  as  the  Hebrews 
translated  the  names  in  the  myths  and  legends 
which  they  took  over.  The  child  will  find,  I  care 
not  how  pure  and  lofty  the  religious  thought  by 
which  he  is  surrounded,  uplift  and  help  in  these 
stories  of  Genesis.  And  the  man  who,  in  the  devel- 
opment of  his  manhood,  has  kept,  as  he  ought  to 
keep,  in  touch  with  his  childhood,  and  in  touch  as 
that  childhood  is  or  should  have  been  with  nature 
and  with  spirit,  will  find,  even  more  possibly  than 
the  child  himself,  spiritual  help  and  spiritual  mean- 
ing in  these  tales.  What  he  imbibed  as  a  child  will 
grow  within  him,  and  develop  new  meaning  as  he 
grows. 

The  man  who  has  altogether  lost  the  spirit  of 
the  child,  the  man  who  has  lost  touch  with  his  own 
childhood  and  his  childish  thoughts,  the  man  who 
has  lost  touch  with  that  sweet  view  of  nature  and 


Moral  Value  303 

of  spirit  which  is  part  of  the  child-Hkcncss  which 
made  Jesus  say  that  we  must  become  like  little 
children  in  order  to  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God, 
has  lost  certainly  one  of  the  best  elements  of  his 
luiman  nature.  So  surely  as  man  keeps  close  to  the 
best  that  was  in  his  childhood,  which,  I  take  it,  is 
of  the  best  that  is  in  his  nature  altogether,  so  surely 
will  he  from  time  to  time,  turning  back  from  other 
studies  and  other  reading,  find  new  inspiration  and 
new  meaning  in  this  wonderful  old  book  of  Genesis. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  it  continues  to  stand 
today  in  the  r>ible,  that  book  which  Jewish  and 
Christian  generations  of  religious,  thoughtful  men 
have  venerated  and  passed  on  for  the  veneration  of 
their  successors. 

FINIS 


INDEX 


Abel,  235ff.,  =95.  298. 

Abimclech,  72,  122. 

Abraham.  46ff.,  49.  59.  So,  94,  100, 
105,  iijf.,  117.  I20ff.,  I2Sff., 
I42ff.,  154,  is6ff.,  170.  i-2f., 
176,  182,  1S7,  191,  I94f-,  •9<^' 
246,  267,  283,  292,  294,  296, 
299. 

Abram,  see  Abraham. 

Abrizan,  festival  of,  88. 

Adam,  33,  2i8ff.,  235,  24if.,  249, 

254.  293- 
Adapa,  225f.,  232. 
>Egaean,  civilization,  39ff. 
Alphabet,  invention  of,  42. 
Amarna  Tablets.    ^3^  S^.   37.  49) 

115,  164,  225. 
Ammon,  35,   37,   47,    54,  60,    152, 

I54ff..  177. 
Amorite,  37,  40.  46.  47. 
Amraphel,  see  Hammurabi. 
And.  226. 
Arabia,    home    of    Semites,  29ff. , 

41,  46f.,  49; 

tribal  stories,  58; 

religion,  95,  loS; 

origins,  265,  267. 
Aramaean,  36,  41,  45,  46,  47,  61, 

75,  iisf..  I33f.,  168,  265,  267. 
Asher,  58.  63f.,  74f.,  77f. 
Ashteroth,  32,  1S2,  187. 


Babel,  tower  of,  232,  26off. 

Babylon,  30. 

Babylonia,  civilization  of,   26f; 

Semitic   domination,  29; 

struggle  with  Klam,   30; 

dommation  of  Palestine,  3iff; 

numeral  system,  55; 

temples,  102; 

mythology,  i;6f  ; 

influence  of,  157; 


habylonia,   religious  development, 

'>74f  ; 

sexual  cult,  iSi ; 

cosmogonic  myths,  1S5; 

legends,  I92f; 

cosmogonies,  I98ff; 

Eden,  209ff; 

creation,  215,  221 ; 

magic,  218,  224,  252; 

serpent,  228f; 

cherubim,  233; 

primeval  king,  242ff; 

flood  myth,  255f; 

Babel,  26off. 
Balaam,  277. 
Banias,  106. 
Beersheba,  105,  114,  124,  128,  136, 

144,  166,  172,  176. 
Behemoth,  184. 
Bel,  20of.,  205,  259. 
Benjamin,  58,  63,  73f.,  77,  155. 
Berossus,  242ff. 
Bethel,    52,  72f.,  iioff.,   124,   128, 

136,  165,  169,  172,  176. 
Beth-Shemesh,  78f.,  179. 
Bilhah,  63f. 
Blessings  of  Jacob,  66ff.,  71. 

"       "     Moses,  66f.,  71. 
Blood,  239. 
Burial,  28f. 
Burning,  28f. 

Cain,  235ff.,  241,  245f.,  295,  298. 

Caleb,  64f.,  165. 

Canaan,  early  conditions,  29f.,  25, 

37; 

alien  to  Israel,  45ff.,  61 ; 

occupation   of,    64,   68,  7off., 

religion,  97f.,  125,  I37f.,   181. 

185; 

cosmogonies,  204; 
Eden  story,  214; 


305 


;o6 


Ind 


ex 


Canaan,  legends  of,  250,  260; 

origin  of,  264; 

immorality,  265f.,  2S6; 

myths  and  legends,  288. 
Caves,  28,  98ff. 
Chedorlaomer,  161,  163,  283. 
Cherubim,  233f. 
Child  Sacrifice,  I38ff. 
Christmas,  85. 
Circumcision,  191,  238. 
Creation,    myth  of,  20off.,  2i5ff., 

279,  285. 

Dagon,  32,  84. 

Dan,  58,  63f.,  yyff.,  107,  113. 

Daniel,  78,  93,  277. 

David,  narrative    of    founding   of 

kingdom,  3; 

official  annals,  4  ; 

narrative  of  early  life,  8; 

commencement  of  era,  43,  65, 

76,  123,  173,  194,  280. 
Dead  Sea,  legend  of,  i4Sff. 
Deborah,  58,  65,  169. 
Delilah,  i8if. 
Deuteronomist,  20. 
Dinah,  63,  67. 
Dragon,  iS4f.,  205ff.,  229. 

Ea,  127,  201,  224ff.,  232,  258f. 

Eabani,  22if. 

Easter,  86. 

Eden,  2o8ff.,  235. 

Edom,  37,  46ff.,  50,  59,  61,  6;^,  65, 

I3iff.,    141,    i68f.,   220,  279, 

294f.,  297. 
Egypt,  civilization,  26f; 

influence  in  Canaan,  34,  5off., 

62; 

magic,  90,  i89ff; 

bondage,  ii8ff; 

mythology,  126,  174; 

serpent  worship,  188; 

paradise,  209. 
Elam,  30,  161. 
Elijah,  76,  83,  277. 
Elisha,  277. 
Ellasar,  see  Larsa. 
Elohist,  17,  62,  123,  135,  166,  169, 

172,  196. 


Enlil,  127,  175,  201. 

Enoch,  242,  245. 

Enos,  242f. 

Ephraim,  54,  58,  60,  6^,  72ff.,  77, 

ii6f.,  170. 
Eridu,  201,  224f. 
Esau,  see  Edom. 
Esther,  93,  159,  277. 
Eve,  235f.,  249. 
Ezekiel,  22,  213,  233,  278. 

Flood,  245ff.,  255ff.,  285^,  293, 
296. 

Gad,  58,  63f.,  74ff. 

Galilee,  79. 

Genealogies,  24off.,  263,  266,  275. 

Gezer,  excavations  at,  28,  98; 

capture  of,  51,  52  ; 

temple  at,  109; 

child  sacrifice,  140. 
Giants,  251. 
Gideon,  9. 
Gilead,  58,  69,  73,  76f.,   106,  134, 

i67f. 
Gilgamesh,  gi,  182,  22tf.,  255. 
Gomorrah,  see  Sodom. 

Hagar,  48. 
Hammurabi,  30 ; 

laws  of,  157  ; 

expedition  of,  i6off ; 

code  of,  181. 
Haran,  i5off. 
Hebron,  64,  loof.,  104,  ii3f.,  128, 

i36f.,  i63ff.,  172,  176. 
Hermon,  loi,  106. 
Hexateuch,  25,  26. 
High  Place,  loiff. 
Hittites,  36ff.,  50,  54. 
Hosea,  tomb  of,  104. 

Iron,  introduction  of,  43. 

Isaac,  46,  59,  80,  94,  106,  114,  126, 
I28f.,  132,  136,  164,  r72f., 
187,  191,  194,  294,  297,  299f. 

Issachar,  58,  63,  71,  75,  79. 

Ishmael,  45,  48,  59,  294. 

Ishtar,  32,  84f.,  91,  93,  182,  222. 


liulcx 


307 


Jacob.  5.  31.  46,  51.  53f..  5S.  59, 
6iff.,  78,  So,  94,  iijff.,  1251-, 
i2Sff.,  i64ff.,  169,  173,  178, 
1S7,  191,  194.  294f.,  297,  299f. 

Jacob-cl,  see  Jacob. 

Jasher,  see  Vashar. 

Jephthah,  9.  I77f. 

Jeremiah,  zz. 

"Jerusalem,  32,  52,  65,  69,  98,  lOi, 
I43f.,  162,  164.  171,  182,   i88. 

Jeshurun,  see  Veshurun 


Joseph,    5.  ^i,   53f..  60,  6zi.,   72, 
74,  78,  80,    I   '  ' 
190. 


:i6tf.,  126,   I34ff., 


Joseph-el,  see  Joseph. 
Joshua,  tomb  of,  82. 
judah,  58,  62ff.,  7'.  77,  I3S- 
judges,  tomb  of,  92. 

Kedcsh,  79. 
Kenites,  236,  238. 
Khabiri,  35ff. 

Laban,  6r,  116.  133,  168,  170. 

I.arsa,  30,  161. 

Leal.,  58,  61,  63f..  7off.,  170. 

Levi,  58,  63,  66t.,  70. 

Leviathan,  1S4,  2o6f. 

Levitical  cities,  32. 

Lilith,  33,  254. 

Lot,  35,  48,  54,  1 52ff.,  164,  296. 

Lotan,  see  Lot. 

Machir,  58,  73. 
Machpelah,  99,  104. 
Magic,   1891.,  218.  252. 
.Mahanaim,  166  f.,  177. 
Manasseh,  54,  58,  60,  72f.,  77.1  i6f. 
Marduk,   93.    127,    175,    185,    199, 

201,  205f.,  215. 
Mazzebah,  108,  176.  182. 
Melchizedek,  162,  164,  172. 
Mercnptah,  50. 
Mesha.  76,  141. 
Methuselah,  242,  245. 
Milkah,  159.  170. 
Moab,  35,  37,  47.  54,  60.  76,    I4«, 

152.  I54ff.,  «77- 
Mordecai,  93,  159. 


Moses,   95ff.,   loi,  121,  126,    187, 

i89ff.,   275.  2S7f. 
Mycenaean,  civilization,  39ff. 

Nabatxans,  46f. 
Nahor,  159,  170. 
Naphtali,  58,  03f.,  74,  79. 
Nazarite,  vow,  179, 
Nebo,  32,  101. 
Neluishtan,   187. 
Ninib,  32. 

Nippur,  102,  127,  175,  201. 
Noah,   24if.,  245,  255ff.,  265,  293, 
296. 

Penucl,  i66f.,  177. 
Phallic.  28,  io8f.,  183. 
Philistines,  origin,  40,  264ff; 

conquest    by,   76,    78,    12 iff., 

180. 
Phoenicia.  36  ; 

civilization  and  alphabet,  42  ; 

worship  of  Gad,  75  ; 

cosmogony  204f. 
Priest    Code,    24.    60,    65.    I98f., 

203ff.,  219,  24off.,  256,  265ff., 

281,  283. 

Rachel,  58,  63.  7off.,  i69f. 
Kahab,  1S2,  184,  187,  205f. 
Rebekah,  129,  132,  299. 
Reuben,  62ff.,  70. 
Ruten,  35. 

Sabbath,  24.  203. 
Sacrifice,  child,  I38ff ; 

flesh,  239. 
.Salman,  32. 

Samson.  78.  I78ff.,  223. 
Sarah,  49,  120.  1:2,  1 70,  297. 
Sarai.  see  Sarah. 
.Sargon  L,  29.  I92ff. 
Scniitic,   27ff.,  31,  36,98,  102,  192, 

265ff.,  294. 
Serpent     Worship,     187^.,     2o6f., 

224.   228ff..  2^lf. 
Sexual  Cult.  iSi^. 
Shamash.  32,  78,  17S. 


3o8 


Index 


Shechem,  66ff.,   Il6f.,   I34ff-,  165, 

176. 
Shedim,  33. 
Shiloh,  100,  117, 
Shooting,  myth,  90. 
Simeon,  58,  63f.,  66ff.,  70. 
Sin,  32,   loi,  126,  I57ff.,  170,  245. 
Sinai,  J02. 

Sodom,  legend  of,  I5iff.,  162,278. 
Solomon,  3,  4,  6,  8,  9,  10,  15,  16, 

62,  98,  280. 
St.  George,  82,  84,  89,   125,  137, 

167,  176,   1S5. 
St.Januarius,  81. 
Stone  Worship,  28,  loSff. 
Sumerian,  27f ; 

demonology,  33,  252. 

Tamar,   182. 
Tehom,   199,  202,  205!. 
Thutmosis,  inscription  of,  52,  54. 
Tiamtu,  199,  202f.,  205f. 


Tobit,  277. 

Totemism,  171. 

Tree  Worship,  100,  224f, 

Ur,  30,  126,  I57ff. 
Uru-salim,  see  Jerusalem, 

Woman,  creation,  222f.,  23if. 
Wells,  I04ff. 
Writing,  27,  38,  42. 

Yagub-ilu,  see  Jacob. 

Yahawist,    15,    58,    71,    123,    135, 

172,   196,  198,  24off.,  256,  263, 

265. 
Yashar,  book  of,  5. 
Yasup-ilu,  see  Joseph.  % 

Yeshurun,  5. 

Zebulun,  58,  71,  75,  79. 
Zilpah,  63f. 


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